Eosophobia
by tripodion
Summary: As Sherlock traverses the globe to burn what remains of Moriarty, John turns away from his past life and begins a new one. Desperate to break out of the darkness of his best friend's coffin, John Watson, soldier, becomes John Watson, assassin, and he's about to find that the name Sherlock Holmes is next on his list.
1. the rebirth

**_"the pain of war cannot exceed_**

**_the woe of aftermath"_**

* * *

><p>Soldiers can never wash the blood off their hands, and John knows this, so he has stopped trying. He stopped a long time ago, when his best friend threw himself off a roof and John knew with absolute certainty, knew as he gripped at Sherlock's sleeve, that he would never get this blood off.<p>

He sat in the shower that night, fully clothed, trembling under scalding water. It still felt cold and he still shook, no matter how high he turned the faucet or how much steam billowed around him. He kept hearing the crunch of bones that he knew he didn't see, kept seeing those bright blue eyes staring into a sky painted the same colour, unmoving, unfeeling. Just…staring.

If someone were to ask John what he did the month or so after the incident (he refuses to name it), he wouldn't be able to answer because he doesn't remember. He remembers waking and bathing and eating and working, but nothing else. His memories of then are static, white noise. He was on the wrong frequency and everyone else was on the right one, ignorant of his desperate, inaccurate lunges to claw his way back in. Everything he tried was wrong, everything he said was wrong, everything he did was _wrong_, so eventually he stopped. He stopped trying and accepted his fate. What else could he do?

Harry stopped calling first. Then Lestrade. Then Molly. Lovely Molly. So kind and nice, so undeserving of his cold brush-offs, of his half-hearted apologies. He knew Lestrade meant well, knew that Lestrade was just as confused and stunned by Sherlock's death as he was. But Lestrade had not cared for Sherlock like John did. Sherlock had been a commodity to him, just an asset really, not that vital factor that sent John's very blood rushing through his veins. Not the breath in his lungs. Not the pounding of his heart. Sherlock had only ever been that to John.

His blood had turned stagnant, like standing water, coagulating into a thick gruel in his arms, lungs, chest, heart, head, brain, fucking _everywhere_, anywhere it could get, ceasing to move the moment Sherlock plummeted off that rooftop.

He felt like he was about to get sick at any moment, like someone had punched him in the stomach, like some unknown force had shoved its hand down his throat and it was choking him with darkness, with an inky heaviness, and he was dry heaving shadows.

He woke up most nights, screaming, sweating, crying. Usually some combination. Sometimes all.

That first week afterwards he would stumble out of bed and vomit into the sink. The first few days afterwards he hadn't made it to the sink.

A month in, he had nearly been hit by a car as he crossed the street before it swerved and avoided him. He found himself wishing that it hadn't.

Five months in and he very nearly had developed a drinking problem. It had started with one finger of whiskey, just to help him sleep. As the weeks passed, one finger had turned into three, then four, and finally, once he had drunkenly stumbled into Sherlock's untouched room on mistake, thinking it to be his own, did he collapse into angry tears, toss the bottle away, and promptly fall asleep in the doorway to his dead flatmate's room, tear tracks staining his face.

A year in, he had taken one too many sleeping pills and awoken to a punch in the face from a frantic Lestrade and a sobbing Mrs. Hudson. He hadn't understood their grief. He was John. Just John. Not Sherlock. He didn't deserve their worry or their pity. Why did they care for him, when he wasn't Sherlock? When Sherlock wasn't there to validate his usefulness?

Lestrade still stopped by sometimes. That always puzzled John, since Sherlock wasn't there to answer his questions. He even asked John to come to a few crime scenes, but the lack of a swirling black coat barking orders and insults had made John kneel over and vomit, which Lestrade had kindly attributed to the gory body before him although they both knew otherwise.

And so John Watson turned away from the world.

Sherlock Holmes had not been the only one to die that day. Even though he hadn't meant to, even though it was the last thing he wanted, he had managed to take John with him.

Donovan had been right.

Sherlock Holmes finally had a body count.

* * *

><p>The first time it happened, it was an accident. Or John told himself that it was an accident, but some deeper, unacknowledged voice in him quietly whispered at night that it might have been on purpose.<p>

It was on Christmas Eve, and, since John had no one to celebrate it with, he had found himself working the night shift at the medical centre. Mrs. Hudson had offered a cracker and eggnog, but he had politely refused her, just as he had refused Lestrade's invitation of dinner at the detective inspector's home. They were good people, good friends, but John didn't need any of that right now. He didn't need to be reminded of just how acutely alone he was.

He always found it odd that people thought nothing bad ever happened on Christmas. He found it odd that they thought that muggers and thieves and murders would look at their calendars and say 'Oh, well it's Christmas Eve, never mind, I'll just kill you tomorrow'. Of _course_ there was still violence and abuse and blood spilt on Christmas, just as there was every other day. John might even wager that there were _more_ incident reports on Christmas than any other day.

So it didn't surprise him when the local hospitals called after being swarmed with E.R. patients and asked him if the clinic was willing to work as a temporary base. And it was no surprise when John, one of the few trauma doctors around, was assigned to handle the severe cases. He was the best equipped after all.

This man that was bleeding out before him was no different. It was a mugging gone bad scenario, except it was the mugger that lay before him, violently bleeding from a curving cut to his leg, right to the femoral artery, probably even nicking the profunda. People lost their morality when it was fight or die. When backed into a corner, humans were just as capable of desperate wildness as any other animal. But this cut, this slice across the mugger's leg, it was too calculated. The person who did it was either involved in medicine or had some semblance of trauma experience to know that they had one shot to get away, and that this wound was their best shot, even if it was often fatal. The cut seemed to be almost ten minutes old, so this man was half-dead by the time he was wheeled in. There wasn't much time.

John peeled off the already soaked through bandages and reapplied new ones as he propped the man's leg up. He toyed with the idea of a tourniquet for a brief moment, yet the risk of necrotic tissue outweighed the situation. He finally settled on a hemostatic agent when the man began to talk.

"I knew this would kill me."

"You're going into shock." John said calmly. Seeing the blood bloom underneath crisp white bandages seemed to soothe him. "You might want to save your energy."

"I killed a kid once." The man admitted through clenched teeth. His whole body had broken into a cold sweat as he shook.

"I'm not a priest; telling me that isn't going to do you any good, at least in this life."

"He was eleven. I used to knock his mum around, and he tried to stop me. So I went into his room one night and I smothered him with his pillow."

John stopped, about to uncap the agent, about to apply it to a mugger-murderer trauma victim and save his life.

"You don't want to save someone like me." The man said, the tremors racking his body. "I'm not going to stop. I know I'm not. Don't save me. I'm not worth it."

He died with that condemnation on his tongue, he died with John standing there dumbly, clutching that uncapped, unused hemostatic agent.

John put the cap back on. Called the morgue to send someone up and get the body. Called a cleaning crew to mop up the blood. Washed his hands. Watched the blood sluice off his palms and dye the water a pale red before disappearing down the drain.

It was an accident, John would tell himself later. Just an accident.

* * *

><p>The second time, it wasn't an accident. There was no way John could fool himself into thinking it was.<p>

He thought he was a better man than bribes, he really did. But after that first month, after that period of observed grief, Mrs Hudson had come to him and quietly, carefully asked when he was going to pay the rent. She had said there was no rush, no rush at all, that she'd understand if he was a little late, but after a month he knew she couldn't wait forever. Paying for a flat was easier with two people than with one, and now there was just one. Only one. How appropriate was it, that the cost of rent was how he and Sherlock met, and that was how he would try and forget him. But he didn't want to. He didn't want someone else in Sherlock's room, he didn't want another Sherlock because of the simple fact that there would _never_ be another Sherlock.

But he was in no position to ensure that forever. So he made sure he could for the time being.

He was no Kevorkian, but he knew a terminal case when he saw it, and the family that sat on that plain sofa in front of him would have to pay, would have to deal with years of repaying their bills and debts to prolong something he could end for them now.

So he did. He didn't tell them, but he did, going into the room quietly at two in the morning for a routine check-up and coming out of the room at two-thirty with the news. He had expected grief or tears or even suspicion, but all he saw was relief. They both, he and this family, wanted the same thing, and now they had it.

Later, the son took him aside and asked him about it, and John didn't lie. He wasn't the lying type, not when he was outside Sherlock's sphere of influence. And that sphere was shrinking every day. The son appreciated the truth, so John told him, and he was rewarded. That surprised him, because he hadn't wanted a reward, he hadn't done it expecting payment. He did it to offer that family solace and comfort in something that was slowly killing them. He was ripping the bandage off so the wound could breathe and not lie in its dormant, saturated, wrinkled state.

He didn't have any options, and so he took the one that he was offered.

The third time, he even may have enjoyed it. It was the same feeling as putting your bare feet on the cold floor, but now he has slippers on. When the thought first came to him, John thought it was stupid, but now he feels that it was appropriate in the simplest terms. He doesn't feel shocked by it anymore. He doesn't feel _anything_ about it anymore.

John was a soldier first and a human next, to put it bluntly. Death was not a foreign idea to him that he pondered at night. Death was his enemy, his friend, his companion, his constant reminder. He had seen it as instantly as men catching bullets in the neck, he had seen it as prolonged as cancer, he had seen slow, bloody deaths and he had seen quick, clean ones. Death was beautiful in its fury, in its unceasing ability to bring the strongest to their knees and the weakest to their feet. Nothing about it was new to him. Nothing about it shocked him anymore. Everyone died, _everyone_, even people that believe they are infallible.

John had learned his lesson.

No one was immortal, and no one could escape Death. Even Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

><p>The third time, he didn't like to think back on it. It was as if he were trying to remember what it was like to be a newborn peering into his mother eyes. Everything about it was dark and bloody and viciously bright and beautiful.<p>

The third time, it had been an accident and on purpose and enjoyable, all at once. He never told anyone, he wouldn't _ever_ tell anyone what had truly happened. All they needed to know was that there was a body and John Watson had put it there.

He remembered his phone ringing and he had scrambled a bloodied hand into his pocket to answer the unknown number.

After that blood and darkness, John stepped into the light.

The third time, John was reborn.

And so John Watson returned to the world.

* * *

><p>He knew better than to talk in the Diogenes Club. He learned his lesson on his first visit.<p>

This time, he had come to Mycroft. He had not been taken or 'kidnapped' or talked into walking into that waiting black car. He had come, of his own free will, to see the remaining Holmes brother.

Mycroft was, unsurprisingly, expecting him.

He looked up as John came in, eyes sweeping over him and collecting whatever data that was useful to him, knowing John's circumstances, his motives for coming, and his future the moment he sat down.

"Did you come here expecting my protection?" Mycroft asked, his tone slightly irritated as always, as if John had interrupted him while he was busy with something far more important.

"No," John answered curtly, "I came here to warn you."

John could now count himself among the ranks of the rare few people on the earth who could say they had seen Mycroft Holmes surprised. Yet Mycroft did not prod further. He was curious.

"I know that you know what's happened to me. I know that you know that I'm going to agree to their terms." John continued lowly. "You can protect me like Sherlock would want, or you can try to stop me like Sherlock might want, but don't get in my way."

"If you're going rogue, you know the rules already, I'm sure. No collateral damage or I get involved. No non-combatants or I get involved. I don't know how much liberty you were given in Afghanistan, and I don't know how much you used it if you were, but you cannot breach civilian lines."

"I know. I don't plan to. I'm meant to follow orders, Mycroft. I'm sure you realised that."

"I'll be watching you, John."

"I know."

John left.

Mycroft eyed his phone, weighing the benefits of calling his dearly departed brother to inform him, before deciding that, as Sherlock had cut himself out of John's life, he had no claims on the need to know what John was planning to do now that he was gone.

John Watson was now, finally and terribly, of great interest to Mycroft Holmes.


	2. night

John Watson was a man of principle, which, as he accepted his new job, meant that he was the first and only person to ever state his restrictions and limitations. Well, really, he had only had one.

_Only ones I know are guilty. I have to have proof._

His recruiter had stared at him for a moment, as if she couldn't quite believe what he had said. A flash of straight, white teeth appeared from behind red lips.

_You're an unusual man, Doctor Watson_. _No one has ever asked that of us before._

_I wasn't asking._

_And if we don't acquiesce?_

_Then I'll leave and you'll pretend that this didn't happen._

_You're good at what you're doing, Doctor. You have so much potential._

_Are you agreeing, then?_

_We are acquiescing, yes. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us? Any other qualms?_

John didn't much care for picking off good political leaders (that was the only time he associated 'good' with 'politics'), but other than that, no, he had no qualms.

_Welcome then, Dr Watson._

* * *

><p>That was three years ago.<p>

He still worked out of 221b Baker Street, despite the shadows that clung to it. There were rules however. There were places he would not and could not go. John was a man of principle.

He never went into Sherlock's room, never, not on any moment of any day in those three years, and he certainly didn't want to now. Going in there would be counterproductive. It would reopen the wound that was still healing over. It would grind salt and dirt into the gaping scar tissue and remind John that, despite what he hoped, Sherlock still was not there. Every day he took a miniscule step closer to confirming the conviction that Sherlock was as dead and gone as everybody else was or will ever be.

It's not that he wanted to think that way. But, as Sherlock would say, he'd have to look at the evidence. He'd seen the detective's fall, and a bloodied, broken body and a gravestone were pretty hard to refute.

Sometimes he would get the kettle out and make two cups of tea before he realised what he'd done. Wordlessly, he'd dump the tea out, regardless of the waste or whether he wanted his anymore or not, and continue on with what he'd been doing, feeling as if a cold wind had passed straight through his chest, leaving him breathless and gasping for air.

Once, he'd even smashed a cup of hot tea in his hand. That had been quite stupid. Sherlock would've scoffed and called him an idiot. Yet no such thing happened and John was left to bandage his burned, bloody hand in silence, which was the worst of all because it meant no one was there to rebuke him except himself, and he said much worse things than Sherlock ever would.

He was alone. Alone with that fucking door that stared at him all the time like a curious bystander at a crime scene, wondering what kind of carnage was happening past that tape.

Mrs Hudson had packed all of Sherlock's things, all of his experiments and equipment, everything that made Sherlock _Sherlock,_ and placed it in that room that John would never go into if it meant that he wouldn't think about it. But he _did_ think about it. That was the problem. He would stare at that plain door and think of nothing else but what lay behind it.

He tried not to think about it, but that wasn't the same as simply _not _thinking about it. He was in a constant staring contest with that damn door, and he always lost, always ceded defeat and turned away to pretend he wasn't thinking of it anymore.

When he was reborn, he was offered the chance to forget about the door, the things it held, and the man that used to sleep behind it (if and when he actually did sleep). They told him it wouldn't hurt, that he wouldn't remember anything about it, that it was a simple procedure. Optional, of course, completely optional, but if this _door_ (he had told them 'door', but they were well-skilled in differentiating between what people said and what they meant) was going to be a problem, he may as well get rid of it.

He politely refused. He would rather live with the knowledge that Sherlock may return one day than not recognise Sherlock at all when he finally returned to him.

His first assignment had been a serial arsonist that decided one day to burn down a church during mass, but caught the Sunday school class in its stead. Ten children were burned alive, along with their young teacher, and eight survived, coming into the clinic with burn injuries. John remembers treating one of the kids, a girl around eight, and seeing her skin burnt and boiling as it bubbled over raw bloody tissue.

The organisation liked to make sure he witnessed the cruelty of his targets before they were given to him and he appreciated it. It kept his mind on track, kept his sights on what he was doing, what his goal was. John welcomed it, welcomed the knowledge that, as he treated these damaged people, he was going to avenge them. He would avenge these wrecked innocents.

He supposed if someone found him out, although he was quite careful and demonstrated a certain discretion that Sherlock would be proud of, they would ask him if he felt bad about what he did, which would imply the question of if he felt guilty. He would look that someone in the eyes and answer honestly, because John was a soldier, not a liar.

He didn't feel anything towards the people he killed. Not guilt, not remorse, and certainly not pity. What guilt had they shown when they torched the church and let those kids and their teacher burn alive? What remorse did they have when they kidnapped young children and then left their bodies for their families to find? What pity did they have when they murdered innocent people? If they had the ignominy to not feel any of that, then John would treat them accordingly.

His phone rang three times.

Another assignment.

He'd have to take the night shift at the clinic again.

* * *

><p>Sherlock did not like snow, so, naturally, he now found himself in the city that was on record as having the highest annual snowfall; 9.3 metres of snow per year. Disgusting. He didn't care for sunny days either, but this, <em>this<em>, was unbearable.

He felt cold all the time. He didn't need this to make it worse. At least if John was there he would chide Sherlock for not tying his scarf tight enough or buttoning his jacket or, god forbid, smoking a fag for the warmth. But John wasn't there, and Sherlock was forced to ponder on all the things John _might_ do instead.

John might be off enjoying the small mountain down of Damüls, Austria. John might throw a snowball at him when he least expected it and say "Christ Sherlock, you look like a fucking barbet with wet hair, you know that, right?". John might stumble through rudimentary German when he ordered his food-although he was always good at picking up useful phrases (must have been from his time in the army)- and then marvel as Sherlock broke out in flawless German, complete with accent, proclaim it _amazing_ or _marvelous_ and demand that Sherlock teach him before he was distracted by hot food.

But he couldn't think about John now. That never led anywhere productive. They were night thoughts, best saved for when the sun went down or the lead was cold and he could let his mind breathe. Let himself ease into those memories like hot water, boiling and bubbling with John, only ever with John-

Stop.

Bookmark it. Come back later.

His contact walked into the unassuming diner off the main street and sat across from the world's only consulting detective who was very, very irritated. But what else was new.

"How are you finding Damüls, Mr Holmes?" The contact smiled.

"Utterly disheartening." Sherlock said, his eyes flicking to the man across from him. He and John had the same colour hair, a vague ash-blonde, it was even cut rather similarly—d_on't think about John_. "There's a security camera, in the corner above my right ear, so keep your eyes on me." The man's eyes start to move to the camera but Sherlock banged his hand on the table. "Eyes. On. Me." He hissed at the startled contact.

"You've changed, Mr Holmes." The man begins slowly. "You're different from the last time we met. More...agitated. Jumpy."

"I have acclimated to altered circumstances."

"I remember reading about St. Bart's." The man said with a smile. "I thought it sounded odd. Didn't seem like you were the type for suicide." The contact's eyes glinted. "So, what happened?"

"Nothing of importance to you." Sherlock answered coldly. "Do you have what I asked for?"

"Yeah. Veliky Novgorod."

And with that Sherlock left, leaving behind a flurry of cold air and a roll of coloured bills.

* * *

><p>He had been foolish to assume that he was safe in his house.<p>

The man had chosen perhaps the worst place to barricade himself, in a room where one wall was completely lined with ceiling-to-floor length windows. Windows that could be opened from the balcony outside. That poor, stupid bastard. He'd never learn. None of them ever learned.

In the comfort of their own wealth people were careless to their own safety. They thought that money would protect them, but money was the thing that usually ended them. People were so utterly predictable.

The man sat in his chair, clutching a Sig Sauer like a priest with his cross. Both methods were as ineffectual at stopping him as the other.

"You would have been safer in the bathroom." A voice said from behind him. "There's only one way in that you have to focus on."

The man turned, coming face to face with _him_. With the Golem.

The man raised his gun and fired.

_Click._

He pulled the trigger again. Twice. Three times.

_Click. Click._

_Clickclickclick._

He'd already found where the man kept his bullets hours earlier. Honestly. He'd have to try harder than that. It's like he was _asking_ to be killed.

The man sighed, shutting his eyes.

"You can look at me if you want." The voice said. "It's alright. Wouldn't want the last thing you see to be that fucking awful wallpaper."

The man looked up at him.

"You're so pale—" He was cut short as a quiet bullet entered his frontal lobe and exited out of the back of his brain. He collapsed to the floor, bleeding from that small hole planted so much like a third eye in the middle of his forehead.

"Sorry I disappointed you." The voice answered coldly. "But you are rather late. I'm afraid you couldn't get my usual treatment."

Gloved hands softly pulled the cell phone from the dead man's hand, clutched so tightly around it. Why did he even bother with such an obvious passcode?

"Veliky Novgorod." The Golem muttered. He looked at the corpse. "At least you're useful."

His phone rang three times.

* * *

><p>John sighed, his breath steaming in the cold air.<p>

His target had been a no-show. That happened sometimes. Plans were derailed, people cancelled on other people, someone decided to pop into the store or got caught in traffic. Various external factors all lead to a disappointing night and no pay.

He had just finished packing when he saw it. That stretched shadow across the walls, like someone had been strapped into a rack and pulled until their limbs popped out of their joints and turned to inhuman putty. That shadow that he had seen once before, when he aimed his gun at it and threatened death if it did not let go of the man it held.

That shadow made his heart pound harder than it had in three years. Something to marvel at, since he had gone through training to ensure that it wouldn't be so out of control, at least not while he was working.

_Sherlock would be proud–_

John shook the thought off. Now was not the time. Save it for later. Keep focused.

He slung his bag over his shoulders, pulled down his nondescript cap and followed, against his better instinct.

His heart had not pounded out of fear or excitement or some emotion that he had learned to compress and compartmentalize for later. His heart had pounded because seeing that shadow had broken all logic. It was so _illogical_ that logic wasn't even a factor anymore, it was something left in the dust as his heart sped away.

It was illogical, because he had learned the Golem's real name, Georgei Kurgazov.

It was illogical, because John himself had watched Georgei Kurgazov die, watched him bleed out underneath his hands, watched the light leave his eyes nearly two years ago.

It seemed that people could come back from the dead now.

But—if nothing else—if the Golem could return, then why couldn't Sherlock?

Apparently _Sherlock_ was all that ran through John's mind, riding on the back of oxygenated blood that thundered through his brain.

He would follow the Golem; that much he knew already.

He would follow because, for a split second, he had misplaced those long, gangly limbs as belonging to someone else, someone that had been long dead for four years, and that split second was all his convictions needed.

* * *

><p><strong>Please review, my lovely readers! I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West as she commands her monkeys to fly, but really, reviews keep me motivated!<strong>


	3. m morstan

It wasn't often that their employees called them since it was usually the other way around, and they even less frequently called angry.

John was an oddity to them, a truly unique oddity.

He called after he lost sight of that stretched shadow as it ducked and swerved through the alleyways until John lost it in confusion, stopping at a dead end.

His heart was still pounding as he dialled the agency's number.

"Where is the Golem?" He asked as soon as he heard someone on the other line pick up.

"John?"

Good, he got Mary. At least she might answer his question.

"_Where is the Golem_?"

"John, calm down, you shouldn't be getting upset while you're working. You know that's not good for—"

"The target was a no-show. I'm off the clock and therefore free to feel upset." John huffed.

"What about—"

"No, that's done too. I'd like my question answered, please."

"The Golem is dead, John. You know that. You _saw_ it. I did too."

"No, Mary, he's not. I saw him tonight."

"You— you actually saw him with your own two eyes?"

"Yes. Well—not exactly. I saw his shadow and I pursued, but I lost him."

"His shadow? That's all?"

John suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.

"Mary, you've seen him. You know no one else could have that same shadow. No one else looks like a fucking spider."

"It could be a trick of the light, John."

"I know what I saw."

Mary sighed.

"You're going to make me file an information request on a shadow?"

"I'm not _making_ you do anything. You know me, Mary. You know I don't lie."

"Alright…I'll start the paperwork. Meet me at the Drop-Off in half an hour. But, before I start, are you on any legal or illegal substances?"

John paused, chewing his gum.

"Does gum count?"

"I'll take that as a no, then. Half an hour, John."

"Thank you."

* * *

><p>Of all of his 'coworkers', he liked Mary the most. She was kind and understanding and supportive. She and Molly Hooper could have been twins with their sunny dispositions in such grim jobs.<p>

Christ, how long had it been since he phoned Molly? Must be nearly a year…on The Anniversary she had called him to talk, but he was in the middle of targeting a drug kingpin, so he let it go to voicemail. He had meant to call back afterward, but it turned out the kingpin knew he was being watched and had posthumously sent someone to Baker Street. John had taken care of them easily, so quietly that he hadn't even woken Mrs. Hudson. Honestly, thugs these days just didn't know how to properly sneak up on someone-

"How do you do it, John?"

He blinked and looked up at Mary. They had met at the Drop-Off, a local 24 hour coffeehouse that many workers liked to frequent, if only to prove they too had a sense of humour.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you're the only clipper that's not on anything. No drivers, no cigarettes, nothing."

"Caffeine." John said, holding up his half-empty cup.

"You know I didn't mean coffee."

"I don't know." John shrugged. "I guess since I've seen the damage it can do I know not to get into it. Plus I'm a doctor, and I know what that stuff can do to you."

"But doesn't it…hurt?"

_T__hey would ask him if he felt bad about what he did, which would imply the question of if he felt guilty._

He looked at Mary for a moment.

John was a soldier, not a liar.

"No." He glanced out the window. "I mean, I know some clippers do what they do for the money or—well, it's usually for the money, isn't it?" They both smiled. "But they get addicted to whatever they're into because they can't deal with what they're doing. I don't feel anything about it, so I feel fine."

"Are you?" Mary asked, concern knitting in her brow. "Fine, I mean."

"I suppose so, in a general sense. Nothing to complain about."

_No violin at three in the morning. No fingers in the fridge. No flatmate sulking about on slow days._

Mary stared at him a moment.

"Do you miss him?"

Like the rest of London, Mary knew the name Sherlock Holmes. Unlike the rest of London, however, she knew the name John Watson much better. Sometimes he wondered just how she did it, how she could tell what he was thinking, especially when he was thinking of _him_, when his thoughts drifted unfiltered to Sherlock.

"Every day." He answered without hesitation because it was the truth so why should he hide it?

"You don't have to be strong all the time, John. You're allowed to break once in a while. I saw your file, from a year after what happened at St Bart's. I know your landlady found you, put in a call for an ambulance, and when DI Lestrade was called in he had to hit you awake...John." She paused. "John, you have to know that you can tell me anything, anything at all, and I'm not going to see you any less than what you are."

Mary looked at him but there wasn't pity in her eyes. Something else. Concern?

"Did you file the request?" He asked calmly.

Mary pursed her lips, clearly wanting to talk to him about other things, but she allowed the change of subject. That was probably why he liked her. She didn't pry.

"I sent it in, yeah. But I don't understand, John. You know the Golem is dead."

"Then what did I see tonight?"

"I don't know what you saw, and you don't know what you saw, so it seems we're at an impasse."

"What does that mean?"

"It means—"

Her phone began to ring. "Bugger, sorry, wait a mo—Hello?" Her face turned to the look she had when the news was neutral, not particularly good or bad. "I'll tell him. Thank you."

John said nothing after she hung up, waiting for her to tell him.

"Veliky Novgorod."

"What about it?"

"That's where you're going when you get on your plane tomorrow."

"Wonderful. Always wanted to go to Russia."

"But I didn't say it was in Russia."

"I do own a spherical object with the world written on it. It's called a globe. I don't know if you've heard of it."

"Enough sass out of you. They'll send you the instructions."

She stood and he followed.

"I'll see you when I get back."

She stared at him a moment as if she was going to say something before she looked at her watch and sighed.

"Hopefully not at 3 am." She said tiredly.

"Why not?" John grinned "That's your shift."

She smiled.

"Goodbye John. You be careful with that charm. It's quite potent. Lethal in large doses."

He smiled and hugged her.

"Bye Mary."

There it was again. That look as if she wanted to say something else.

He watched her leave and cross the street to the nondescript building the agency worked out of.

He'd have to call Molly later, it seemed. He had to pack all the warm clothes he owned.

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you to everyone who reviewed! They really keep this ship sailing. Unfortunately, though, this ship is not currently flying the JohnMary flag.**


	4. the court

"Being walkers with the dawn and morning,

Walkers with the sun and morning,

We are not afraid of night,

Nor days of gloom,

Nor darkness-

Being walkers with the sun and morning."

- Langston Hughes

* * *

><p>The red bricked Kremlin lay in front of John Watson, formidable in its simplicity and separated by the shimmering and calm, cool waters of the Volkhov. A local had given him a quite enthusiastic history of it before he finally interrupted and asked where he might find Yaroslav's Court was and perhaps a nice lunch as well. The local's answer was just as excited as if John had asked where he could find the entire history of Novgorod and then vigorously and extensively complimented his mother.<p>

Yaroslav's Court was just as scenic as he'd expected.

A giant series of arches that he had mistaken for an aqueduct from far away comprised a large exaggerated pen of sorts, a giant fence that vaguely resembled the Colosseum, pristinely white washed as it stood guard over the Volkhov River, which ran smoothly in front of him, the lazy current lapping at the cool wind, continuously turning as if it were tanning itself under the clear, bright day. Each arch was a world all it's own, a den of privacy, for an iron fence running behind him separated him from the park and each of his sides where blocked by the curving beam. Standing underneath the arch gave him a sense of comfortable privacy, like arms reaching up to cage him in and protective hold. Sound floated from all sides, conversations and chatter and laughter.

He felt peaceful. He didn't feel that often, so he knew it when it bloomed inside, a clear calm so much like cold river water. A boat slowly cruised over the water, tourists snapping pictures over the railings. He wasn't proud enough to call it arrogance, or indomitability, but he felt powerful. These people and he were not alike, and he knew that. He was apart from them, another category all his own now, the newest outlier, the outcast, the social oddity. Sherlock was no longer the only member of that isolated tribe—

"Don't be stupid."

John's head snapped up, his gaze darting from the river to scan his surroundings. Nothing much to look at. A few tourists taking pictures, locals sunbathing on the grass, people walking dogs. A boy nearby him coughed.

That was Sherlock's voice, unmistakably. But there was no conceivable way that's what he heard. This wasn't a good sign, if he was imagining his dead best friend's voice.

He must finally be losing it.

* * *

><p>Sherlock Holmes, very much alive and very much irritated, stared in exasperation at his new contact.<p>

"They're sending me children now?"

"I am 19, sir." The boy replied defiantly in a Slavic accent.

"I have no earthly idea why you stated your age thinking it might change my perception of you." Sherlock said plainly. "Because it didn't. And your accent is particularly telling. You were born in southeastern Bosnia, am I right? Somewhere around Sarajevo?"

The boy gaped.

"And since you're 19," Sherlock continued, "You were born during the Bosnian War, which means your mother fled with yourself and your older, red-headed sister after your father was killed somewhere around 'Ulica Zmaja od Bosne', commonly known as 'Sniper Alley', I'm guessing sometime before it became a known civilian death spot, so he must have been running an errand, and since the snipers didn't spare children you obviously weren't there. His death forced to you to be the man of the house virtually your entire life, hence the chip on your shoulder and your eagerness to tell me your age."

He stared at the boy, who looked at him blankly. A hurt anger had curled itself in his brow. Sherlock expected a punch to the face and welcomed it, if it meant feeling something. Somewhere he knew that no punch could ever send his blood into a dazed shock like John's did all those years ago in that desperate alley fight behind _that_ woman's flat.

The boy didn't hit him.

"My sister's hair is brown. My mother's is red."

Sherlock smiled. He'd have to tip this boy.

"My mistake."

He half-expected the boy to ask how he knew all these things, as John once did, but he was again surprised.

"You know you're being watched, yes?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Common sense, sir. The only way to look around these arches are to lean over the fence," He indicated the iron fence beside them, "So you wouldn't know if someone was on either side, listening, which they must be since you're a criminal and all, you must be wanted for something somewhere—"

"_Don't_," Sherlock snarled quietly, "_ever_ call me a criminal again."

"So you track them, then?"

"If you wanted to be simple, you could say that, yes."

"It's usually one or the other." The boy shrugged. As his shoulders moved, Sherlock could see a dark scar spidering up from one side of the boy's neck from underneath his jacket. His father hadn't died alone, then. His death gave his son something to remember him by, something to live with forever.

"Do you have what I asked for?" He asked.

"Yes, but I was told to keep it at—"

"Yes, yes, I know. I ordered it to be left there." Sherlock said irately. "You have the address?"

The boy nodded and handed him a piece of paper.

"Well, thank you for your help. You should feel special. I don't say that often."

"I want to come with you."

Sherlock stared at the boy a moment. He reminded him of John.

"Don't be stupid." Sherlock scoffed.

* * *

><p><strong>Apologies for the shortness andor cliffhanger! I'm working on university papers and I've not much time lately.**

**In these moments of stress, I find a huge comfort in the eloquence of the reviews of Sherlock fans. You guys really and truly write the BEST reviews and I'm not just kissing ass! I can't tell you the smile they put on my face.**


	5. beliye nochi

"The Sun's rising from the river  
>Nature's miracle once more<br>Will light the world

But this light  
>Is not for those men<br>Still lost in  
>An old black shadow"<p>

**"Oh My Love" - Riz Ortolani**

**Yep. Just quoted off the _Drive_ soundtrack. No regrets.**

* * *

><p>Where had he gone wrong?<p>

...

Okay. That was stupid. He knew _exactly_ where he had gone wrong.

He had trusted the wrong person. Rule number one that the agency had spent hours drilling into him, and he had gone and fucked it up.

No one, not even Sherlock could save him now. John would be the luckiest man in existence if he lived to see the next day.

It was all his fault.

All his fault.

So many things he could've done that his fear had sent into a screaming halt.

He could have tracked Sherlock down. That hurt the most. He had the resources through Mary, but he hadn't done anything. _He_ _hadn't done anything. _He had been afraid of the results, had been afraid of sending someone to track him down and report that Sherlock really was dead and John had imagined his voice that day outside of the Novgorod Kremlin and that Sherlock Holmes was surely and absolutely dead, that there was no trace of him on any corner of this earth except for the grave he lied in.

Now John would never know. He had thought once, staring at that door, that if he never knew what had happened his whole life, he might die a happy man. That was foolish. He should have searched; he should've scoured the globe until he found that gangly, black-coated, blue-scarfed, brilliantly stupid detective. If their positions had switched and John had been the one to leave, Sherlock would have found him by now, undoubtedly. Sherlock would have run himself ragged to find his doctor. Sherlock would never have given up, like John did. Sherlock would never have run away, like John did. John had gone sprinting around the world, trying to escape the shadow that Sherlock had cast over him, but it was like running from an eclipse. Sherlock could not be escaped.

John had no choice now but to wait to fall back into the grave with him.

His 'contact', that traitorous fucker, had met him at Yaroslav's Court, as arranged, but his information had been faulty and vague. John should have realised it was a trap. He should have done many things, like break that bastard's neck before he could talk, or at the very least shoot his legs out from under him. It would only be the kind thing to do to repay him for whatever hell he was about to go through.

He wanted them to end it quickly. If he wanted anything in his life, that was it. If his fears about Sherlock were true and the detective really was deteriorating in his grave, then good on those that were about to kill John. He hoped they did whatever they had planned for him fast. He wanted it over and done with. He wanted to see Sherlock again. He wanted to sit with his best friend and know that nothing was going to stop him ever again, wanted to know that nothing was ever going to come between them. He doubted that he'd make it to heaven after all he had done, but, then again, Sherlock probably wouldn't make the cut either. At least they'd have eternity together.

He was strapped naked to some sort of gurney, which sounded foreboding at first, but when you've been strapped to a cold plate of metal for three hours you tend to become more annoyed and uncomfortable than frightened. The room was empty when he woke, and so it remained until he heard the door open and shut.

That was the last thing he remembered.

* * *

><p>How odd it was, that fated had scripted John Watson to die not one block away from the house where Sherlock Holmes was sitting, quietly picking at a plate of steaming varenyky and thinking, as always, of John.<p>

John would like varenyky, those little doughy dumplings. John would like the buttery taste. John would ask for seconds. John would accept the family's insistent offerings of vodka and bread. John would do all those things that Sherlock couldn't. To this family, Sherlock was a weird, bitter alien. He supposed he wasn't doing the good name of England any favours.

Mikheia looked at him. That odd little boy with that odd little spider scar. Sherlock was, at once, both pleased and annoyed that he had accepted his offer of dinner.

"You're not hungry?" He asked between mouthfuls of bread. Sherlock blamed his hunger for his manners, but he also understood it. He had run this boy ragged all over Novgorod looking for the address before finally accepting a bombed out building in front of him, recently ravaged by fire, as the last known address of his contact and crossing his name off the list. Someone had gotten to him first, it seemed.

"Not particularly. I try not to eat while I'm working."

Mikheia shrugged. His mother asked something in Russian and he answered nonchalantly. His sister hadn't taken her eyes off Sherlock since he came in the door and he had purposefully avoided her gaze. It didn't make him uncomfortable, but he knew that if he looked at her he would say something offensive and that would certainly make the rest of the table uncomfortable.

"She says she can pack you some for later, if you'd like?"

Sherlock pursed his lips. He could save money if he accepted, but then he'd also have to be polite. Decisions, decisions. He smiled. It felt rubbery.

"Yes, tell her that would be most appreciated."

He never dug his rubber smile out when John was around. He never had to.

Mikheia talked to his mother for a few moments, and she smiled warmly at Sherlock. He didn't want to be unkind to her. John must be rubbing off on him. Or he _had_, rather.

As the family began clearing off the table, Mikheia shrugged on his jacket in the tiny foyer. Sherlock stared at him.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm coming with you."

"What gave you that idea?"

"You let me follow you the whole day; you came to my home for dinner. Why would you do that if you didn't need something out of me?"

Sherlock felt a cold smile come upon him.

"I know Russian, English, French and even some Belgian. I'm still useful to you and I still need money. So, Mr. Holmes, say hello to your new translator, sir."

Mikheia held out his hand. Sherlock didn't take it. He found this boy's panache admirable. Most people wouldn't. Most people would be cowed or politely excuse themselves from the situation. But, seeing as Sherlock didn't belong to that particular tribe of men, he nodded.

"Fair enough."

Mikheia relaxed, smiling. His twin canines were sharp. The far left incisor was chipped. Judging by his circumstances, it was probably from opening some kind of tin can with his teeth. His mother called out something from the kitchen and he laughed.

"What did she say?"

"She asked if the scarecrow needed bread too, along with his hay."

Sherlock felt an amused grin flicker up.

"Tell her that if she is willing to offer it, I accept."

Mikheia replied in a short, hearty bark.

"You know your way back to the hotel?"

"It's a _Beliye Nochi_, sir. A White Night. The sun doesn't go down for two more hours, if it goes down at all."

"But it's already 8 o'clock."

Mikheia and his sister laughed.

"These are common in the summer, here. I thought you'd have realised that Russia is not England, sir."

Sherlock frowned as Mikheia opened the door. The night outside, if it could be called so, looked just like early evening had. The Kremlin, red like blood, was silhouetted against the light past the river, standing guard over the tiny little apartment like a sentry. Sherlock wondered if it was abandoned or being put to good use. Judging by its isolated architecture, it was probably in use by the government. He had no way of knowing that, as he clutched the warm tin of varenyky and bread and thought of how John would have enjoyed the view, John Watson was trapped in the bowels of the Kremlin, waiting for their reunion.

"You know," Mikheia continued, "For a man very smart as you, you can be very stupid sometimes."

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you, everyone who reviewed! I appreciate all the love!<strong>


	6. the devil is in the beats

John woke up. That was very good. That was also very bad.

He hurt all over, every muscle and tendon and strained vein caught in a fiery pinch.

Sherlock was nowhere in sight. That hurt most.

He was still alive. That meant no Sherlock. But…it also meant that he could try to escape.

Whoever had him here wanted to prolong whatever they were doing to him. John didn't care much for that idea.

The uncomfortable belt that stretched across his chest and strapped his arms down was thin, pliant and durable…which meant it would be hard to break out of. Not impossible…but hard. He closed his eyes. Quietly took a deep breath and let it out. He jerked up hard, bringing all of his upper mass forward, and heard the belt snap underneath the gurney, clattering to the floor. Someone was bound to have heard that, if not the clanging metal noise as he untied his feet.

Ever since Moriarty, John did not liked to be strapped to anything. It made him nervous.

He looked around for his clothes, which were nowhere in sight. He sighed and moved to stand on the cold linoleum before his legs promptly gave out from under him. He groaned and reached up to grab the metal gurney, pulling himself back up. He wobbled on unstable legs.

What exactly had they done to him?

Someone burst through the door a moment later then was swept up in a blur of motion as John knocked them out cold. He wasn't aiming to kill, not when he didn't know where he was and certainly not when he didn't have to. The agency had been sure to teach him a number of manoeuvres he could use, so his arsenal was ample enough to where he didn't even have to knock two people out the same way.

He looked down at the unconscious someone and sighed.

Looks like he'd be escaping wearing women's trousers.

As much as he dreaded it, there was no use running naked through the halls…

That was something Sherlock would do.

* * *

><p>John opened the door, stepping out into the hallway in women's slacks. There was something he'd never thought he'd do. Check that off the list of things he never wanted to do again.<p>

As he closed the door, he self-consciously tugged at the waistline. The trousers were a little snug, but made of some kind of smooth material that let his skin breathe easily. Good, proper pants for running away in.

He heard the pound of oncoming footsteps, of boots on tile, so security must be on their way. No sooner had he come to that conclusion than two darkly clad officers rounded the corner.

"Oi!" One shouted, raising a gun as the other ran forward. Elongated barrel, smaller firing chamber…John could tell a tranquiliser gun from a real one when he saw it.

He turned to face them and caught a small dart in his shoulder. Wincing (and mentally cursing), he quickly plucked it out and stabbed the oncoming guard in the neck with it, carefully hitting the jugular, before reaching into his belt, drawing his gun, and shooting the other in the chest.

They were aiming to shoot, but not kill. So would he.

He unbelted the man in front of him and quickly buckled it around his own waist, taking both men's ammunition and security passes.

John Watson was not a man to be experimented on.

* * *

><p>Sherlock Holmes was not a man for small conversation. He had to hand it to Mikheia for trying so persistently, but after his fortieth breech of blessed silence, he was starting to wear on Sherlock's nerves.<p>

"And here, it is the Kremlin. Sort of like our watchtower or soldier barracks or fort or what have you…"

Sherlock suddenly perked up. Something interesting, finally.

"What is it used for now?"

"Now? Now, it is a tourist site, but it is also government mandated. It is used for research, they tell us."

"And you believe them?"

"You say that like there is another option to choose."

"They don't tell you."

"Of course not. The government tells us what is necessary, as does yours. But no one makes a fuss if it is not disclosed the way they think it should."

"Do you think we could get inside?"

"I do not think they offer extensive tours, sir. Admission is free, but they do not want you wandering—"

"What do you say to us having our own little tour?"

Mikheia frowned.

"I am not so sure about that. You are a visitor to the country and if you are caught in places you do not belong, you will not be treated courteously."

"I just want a look around."

"That is not how it works here, sir. This is not England. You cannot just have a look around a government facility without the proper passcodes or papers or identification."

"You know the inside of the Kremlin well, then?"

"Reasonably, yes. My friend's father works inside. And you cannot toss the sheep fur over my pupils. I know what you are querying."

"The phrase is 'pull the wool over your eyes', and I am doing no such thing. I don't want a _tour_. I want to visit one room and one room only."

"And what room might that be?"

"The archives. Can you get me in?"

"Perhaps…but we can get lunch now, yes? And you must not take anything from the archives. That is my only scruple. In fact, when the Kremlin was built—"

"If I agree, will you stop talking?"

"Indubitably."

"Then it seems I have no other alternative if I want to extract any modicum quiet out of you—" Sherlock paused, turning to Mikheia. "You planned that, didn't you? You were exceedingly loquacious in the hopes that I would become desperate enough to agree to your terms."

Mikheia stared at him, hands behind his back, with a boyish grin on his face.

"I do not know what you mean, sir. May I lead the charge, then?"

"Certainly."

"Good…" Mikheia smiled before his stomach started to growl. "But lunch first. Since you are the one with the crazy ideas, you are the one paying."

* * *

><p>They knew where he was now. The alarm had been sounded or whatever they used to alert the staff of the facility.<p>

John treaded the halls carefully. The electricity in the wing he had been trapped in had been cut off, nearly locking him inside, but he had managed to slip through the doors before they shut. It was only a matter of time before they realised where he was, once they checked all the wings. He would be found through process of elimination if he didn't find a way out soon.

The lights began to flash above him like it had been someone's idea of imitating a mediocre nightclub, but John knew what it meant. They were about to quarantine the wing he was in.

He ducked behind a wall as the lights flashed off and waited for two more officers to stride past him on their way to the wing where he had been strapped to that hellish bed. There was no use wasting the darts he had on them. They weren't a threat.

He had to get out.

The lights turned on.

He had to run. Now.

The lights shut off.

As he raced through the dark halls, adrenaline pumped through him like liquid sunlight, brightening his blood until his heart was bursting like an imploding supernova with every beat. He was moving in hyper-time, no longer noticing the cold pain that pervaded every crevice of his body or the sudden dizziness that crashed onto him in waves, like he was being pushed and battered in the pull of a riptide.

As the lights turned back on, a shadow passed over the wall down at the end of the hallway, long, towering, elongated and—and—

John skidded to a halt, nearly tripping himself.

The Golem was here, just around the corner ahead.

But, that was impossible…right? A dead man can't just simply sit up and walk around and stalk through the halls, looking for an obscure doctor with an obscure history in an obscure city. There was no faking the Golem's death, no faking that slit jugular, no faking those death rattles, no faking the light leaving his eyes. That was absolutely, unequivocally _impossible_.

John seemed to be dreaming of many impossible things lately. He'd have to stop before they got the better of him.

The shadow paused, as if it could hear John's heart beating madly against his chest, as if he could smell the sweat that slicked John's hair to his ears or feel the vibrations of John's pulse as it travelled through the floor like the tremors of an earthquake.

The shadow paused, and then moved on. The lights turned off.

The floor shifted beneath his feet, soft waves rolling underneath the tiles like he was bobbing out in the ocean.

John had to get out. He had to get out _now_, before the Golem came back. Before they could catch him again and do god knows what.

The lights turned on and began to flash.

He paced the halls, a pathogen in a clean bloodstream. The lights flickered faster above him.

He couldn't feel fear now. He wouldn't let it cloud his rationale. It wasn't worth the cost.

The room grew hot, baked in sun like he was inside an oven. The floor morphed to gritty sand. He could taste it; his throat was parched and dry. The hallway before him was a valley beneath him, green, green with life and water and the enemy.

A long shadow crawled its way up the wall across from him, like a spider. He could hear someone shouting commands in his radio. He raised his tranquiliser gun and took careful aim at the shadow before he felt a solid punch to his right shoulder. Fire licked at the joints, searing through bone and muscle and tendon like he was made of butter. He looked down.

His shoulder, save for his scar and the prick from the dart, was fine and whole. Clean. No blood. No wound. He had imagined it.

But it felt so _real_.

Quit it. Now was not the time to let your imagination get the best of you. Focus. _Think_. What would Sherlock do?

He'd assess the situation. He'd reflect on his holdings and think of exits. He'd find a way out.

There were no windows, so he was either underground or they had planted him somewhere that everyone could see but no one would suspect. Now, what was so close that he could be taken with minimal fuss or attention, with no conceivable windows that wouldn't arouse suspicion of the general populous—

Of course. He was an idiot.

He was inside the Novgorod Kremlin.

* * *

><p>"What have you heard about the Golem?" Sherlock asked, watching Mikheia eat his lunch.<p>

Mikheia paused, chewing his food thoughtfully.

"Nothing much. People, they don't like to speak about him."

"But he's known here?"

"Yes, fairly well. But, only by rumours, you know? He is not so much a man as he is a shadow."

"Do you know where I can find him?"

"They only people that know where he is are criminals, like him. If I knew, if I was a criminal, I probably wouldn't tell you. It is very easy to see that you are a foreigner. Criminals make it their business not to trust foreigners."

Sherlock smirked.

"I have my ways of getting them to talk."

* * *

><p>John ran through the slanted corridor, the cool air chilling the sweat breaking over him. The doors were beginning to shut in front of him, just a few more feet, a few more steps—<p>

He skidded through the tiny gap and collapsed on the other side with a sigh of relief. As he crouched on the ground, he felt a weight in the pocket of the woman's trousers he had taken. He reached in and dug out a mobile before cursing his lack of foresight. He should have had the practicality to find it and take it from her before he had started running. If he hadn't found it he probably wouldn't have considered looking until later, when it was too late. Someone was looking out for him then.

He dialled a number. His fingers were shaking, but from what exactly, he didn't know.

Three rings.

"John?"

He sighed in relief.

"Mary…"

"_John_," There was a rustle of papers as she moved. "Oh my god, where are you? We've been looking for you for nearly two days—"

"Mary, I'm in the Kremlin. They did something to me while I was unconscious and I had to break out and steal some poor woman's trousers. I don't know what they've done to me."

"You _stole _—"

"Yes, we'll talk about it later! Can you get me out of here?"

"Yes, I'll send someone. Head to the south gate. A car will be waiting. Can you find your way there?"

John crouched lower as a guard ran past where he was hiding.

"I think so. They're shutting down the wings after they search through them. I'll try to get to it before they find me."

"Good luck, John."

He hung up, took a deep breath, and turned down the corridor, breaking into a run.

And promptly slamming right into someone.

Before they could react, he drew his gun and aimed it at their temple.

"Where is the south—oh for fuck's sake."

This _someone_, he was just a boy. He didn't even look to be out of his teen years.

He had at least expected the boy to quiver at the sight of the gun, but he stared John in the eyes. He had seen death and he was not afraid. This boy had mettle. John would be very sorry to have to shoot him.

"You're the one that's escaped? The one they're looking for?" The boy's accent wasn't Russian, it was something from farther east. Romanian perhaps?

"You could say that, yeah."

"You are…wearing women's slacks."

"Ah." John looked down. "That can also be said, yes."

"You wish for me to tell you where the south gate is so you can escape." It wasn't a question, it was an acknowledgement.

"I'd hate to shoot you."

"I have looked a real gun in the face, sir. That is not a real gun."

"No?" John cocked the hammer. "It shoots like one. Care to see what you'll get from it?"

The boy blanched.

"Are you dangerous?"

"Not to you. Not to civilians. And you aren't wearing a uniform, so that makes you a civilian."

The boy stared at him again. John had the odd feeling that he knew everything about him. It made his spine squirm.

"The south gate is one hallway down, right, and left."

"Thank you."

For a moment, John considered shooting him. But that would leave him vulnerable to outside attack. They would know that he had helped John. They would know by his clothes that he wasn't supposed to be here. It would expose him to unnecessary aggravation.

John looked at him.

"What's your name?"

"Mikheia."

An officer approached them from behind the boy. John took one glance and shot him cleanly in the hollow of his throat. Mikheia looked with wide eyes at the body, registered the feathered tail of a tranquiliser, and relaxed.

"They don't want you dead, do they?"

"No, I don't think so." He turned to the boy. He wanted to leave him with something, to know this encounter hadn't been imagined. Something to tell others. Maybe John would be a schoolyard legend. That'd be interesting. "Mikheia, my name is John. It was lovely to meet you, and thanks for helping me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm getting the hell out of here and changing these trousers."

John turned and bolted down the hall, missing the swirl of dark coat as Sherlock Holmes rounded the corner and came back to Mikheia.

* * *

><p>Sherlock saw a shirtless man dressed in women's slacks running with his back to him and took a moment to process it. Must be the escaped prisoner he and Mikheia had heard about. He had hair like John's…similar body type too, but it was too muscular to be<em> his<em> doctor, too lean and agile for a simple soldier. Must be a spy, then, or possibly an international hitman. Or even a failed scientific experiment, but it was a damn good one then, to look like he did. Only—

He saw a flash of dark scar, kissing the man's left shoulder blade.

Stupid. It was probably shadows or sweat or blood. Any number of combinations of things culminating to try and trick Sherlock into seeing what he wanted to. And he very much wanted to see John, but unfortunately John was fifteen hundred miles away, sitting in the flat they once shared and moving on with his life.

"Who was that?" He asked.

"The prisoner." Mikheia replied nonchalantly. He was remarkably calm for having faced down a potentially crazed, armed, and drugged man hunted by the government. An animal backed into a corner. Sherlock noted the tremble in Mikheia's fingers that he most likely didn't even notice himself.

"I figured as much." Sherlock said, staring down at the unconscious guard. "What did he want?"

"Directions." Mikheia said, scratching at his collar, above his scar.

"Naturally." Sherlock stepped over the sleeping body. "Why didn't he shoot you?"

"I think he wanted to. But I helped him, so maybe he did not want to after all."

"He could be a threat to your homeland."

"I do not think he is. His eyes were kind. But they were dying."

"Ridiculous. Eyes can't die unless the rest of you does first."

"No, the kindness. It was dying."

Sherlock left the statement in the air and, in a rare occurrence, he did not know what to make of it.

* * *

><p><strong>I hate sounding like a broken record, but please review! I know the romance has been lack, so I'm thinking of tossing a JohnJam pairing in here later.**


	7. the pech

John collapsed in the back seat of whatever care the agency had conscripted to get him out. He didn't care if it looked good as long as it had an engine and wheels and could get him as far away from that place as possible.

Mary was waiting for him.

"It's alright John." She said quietly, smiling. "We've got you."

He laid his head in her lap and she softly stroked his temples, lulling him into a calm, exhausted sleep.

He dreamed his first dream in years, or at least one that he remembered.

He was back in Afghanistan. A lot of people assumed he had been stationed in some remote desert outpost, but he had actually been assigned near Asadabad, which was more mountainous and lush than Kandahar or whatever people usually pictured when they heard Afghanistan. You could see white-capped mountains in winter bloom in the summer, and lush green would pass under your feet and you would be glad because it meant you weren't in the godforsaken desert. Of course, mountains meant valleys, and valleys meant the enemy could tuck in and remain hidden in the bush, and that was the problem of it all.

In his dream, he had been on the banks of the Pech River, dipping his sweaty, dirty feet in the considerably cooler water.

In his dream, he had been bleeding, but he didn't know from what.

In his dream, Sherlock had been there with him.

John watched as the water sluiced away the dirt and sweat and rawness of the day. The sun felt hotter here than anywhere else, like it focused all its attention on the parched earth he now sat on.

"You're hurt."

He looked beside him, where Sherlock was lounging on the ground. Certainly an odd sight to see since Sherlock rarely ever _lounged_ anywhere (that meant he was relaxed and John doubted Sherlock even knew the feeling of the word), much less somewhere that was dirty. That's how John knew he was dreaming.

"When am I not?" John replied with a pained grin.

Sherlock scooted forward. Sometimes John suspected his social graces had never passed the blatant, inquisitorial nature of a seven year old.

"Where does it hurt?"

His voice was different than John remembered, and that scared him. He didn't want it to be different. He wanted it to be as he remembered, smooth and dark like scotch. If his voice was different, that meant John was forgetting him. He didn't want to forget. He hadn't refused the agency's offer to just _forget_ all on his own.

"Everywhere." John answered, because it was true. It hurt everywhere. His head, his knees, his toes, his wrists, his heart. Everywhere.

"I'm sorry, John."

Yes, John Watson was certainly dreaming.

"You shouldn't be." He said with a heavy grin.

"Doesn't mean I'm not."

They sat for a moment, watching the sun reflect off the lazy water, flowing like there weren't bigger things to worry about. The banks of the Pech had always been John's favourite spot to come to if he had any sort of free time when they were re-supplying. Sometimes he had friends with him, sometimes he didn't. He didn't remember feeling acutely alone until the one friend he wanted there with him was dead.

"It's a funny place we're in." Sherlock said, looking around at the swaying trees and leering mountains in the distance.

"What, Asadabad?"

"That's not what I meant."

John tossed a pebble into the water.

"Yeah, I know."

"I miss you, John."

"I know, you stupid genius. I miss you too."

"No one's around to tell me how brilliant I am."

They smiled.

"Poor little genius…no one's around to tell me how stupid I am."

"I never thought you were stupid. In fact, you're one of the smartest idiots out there."

"Funny how I take that as a compliment now…at least, coming from you, of course."

"Have you…moved on?" Sherlock asked quietly.

"Have you?"

"I meant with your life."

"I did too."

"No."

"Well, then that makes two of us."

"I'm sorry, John."

"I told you to stop saying that."

"But I am."

"_Stop it_, Sherlock. That's not going to get us anywhere now."

Sherlock said nothing, but moved his hand over the scar on John's shoulder. He shut his eyes. As he exhaled, John felt his breath skim along Sherlock's neck, arched in front of him like a column of white marble.

"The kindness is bleeding out of you, John." Sherlock said quietly, and when he drew his hand away it was bloody from a wound that John couldn't see. But he felt it. God, did he feel it.

"I don't want it to." He admitted through clenched teeth.

Sherlock laid a hand on either side of John's face as he stared down at him.

"I know you don't."

Sherlock dipped down, brushing his lips over John's like sunlight skimming over water before he moved up and rested his chin in the crook of John's nose.

"Are you alive?" He muttered as Sherlock pulled away, resting his forehead on John's.

Sherlock's great eyes opened and stared at him.

"That depends on what you mean by alive." He muttered quietly.

"I mean is your heart beating? Are your lungs working? Blood flowing, limbs moving, brain thinking?"

Sherlock closed his eyes.

"What do you want me to tell you, John?"

"Tell me—" John's throat tightened. "Tell me that you're alright. Tell me you're out there, somewhere, waiting for me. Tell me that I can find you if I look hard enough."

"You can always find me. I will never hide from you, John. Never. And if I do, you can hit me as hard as you like."

John laughed softly.

"I hardly think physical abuse will make you want to hide from me less."

"There are many ways to be alive, John. I feel like I am, somehow."

Tears began to drip down John's face. Why now…why ever? But he didn't stop them. He didn't want to. He had never given Sherlock the opportunity of seeing him like this, he had been careful to hide it, so why stop now? What stood in his way?

"John." Sherlock moved forward. "John, you're bleeding. Let me help you. I want to help you." He laid a hand on the scar again.

"John." He traced the scar through the blood-soaked shirt.

"John." Pressed his lips to it carefully.

"_John._"

He opened his eyes to a blurred, pale shape standing above him.

"Sh'lock?" He muttered, trying to grasp upwards. The shape moved away from him. "Sh—Sherlock, don't go. I'm not—not ready yet."

The room he was lying in was cold and plain. He could feel cold sweat breaking out and slicking over that which had already dried earlier.

"The fever's breaking." Someone said quietly.

"He'll be alright?"

Mary, wonderful Mary. If only she had come along earlier.

"Without a doubt."

"Thank God."

John slipped back into sleep.

* * *

><p>Sherlock woke with the oddest dream lingering in his head.<p>

That was most peculiar. He never dreamed, or never remembered them if he did. He always woke with a million thoughts, and dealing with a little trifle like a dream was not high on his list of priorities. But John had been in this one. That made it skyrocket to the top of the list.

This time, he only woke with one thought, bouncing around in all the free space it could never usually afford.

He had been sitting somewhere he had never been, and John had been doing something he had never done…what was it? There had been water, fresh and salt. There had been sun and wind and John. He only needed one of those things, the rest could rot for all he cared and he wouldn't give them a second thought.

For all his great expanse of memory, Sherlock couldn't remember the rest.

But he remembers the ache in his shoulder as he woke up, something deeper than the tension of just sleeping with his weight it. It was pain. He felt pain. He didn't know why.

If John were there, he'd have an explanation for it, surely. But John wasn't there. Maybe that was why it hurt.

Sherlock sat up a long time after that as he laid out all the things he remembered of John in front of him like stolen knickknacks or souvenirs. All of John's traits, his physical appearance, every jumper he wore, they all lined up to pass in front of Sherlock. At first they pushed and shoved at each other in frantic desperation to be seen, but there was plenty of time to give each one it's just deserved attention. He lay awake and let them undulate before him for the rest of the night.

Mikheia had given him a sideways glance as he met him later that day, but said nothing. Sherlock liked the fact that he didn't talk unless necessary (or to get something out of him, which he didn't so much care for, but admired the tact with which he did it).

Now, sitting on the bus, Mikheia twitched in his seat.

"Tell me." Sherlock said bluntly without looking up, as he paged through his book.

"What?"

"Tell me what's bothering you."

"Nothing's bothering me."

"You can lie to me all your little heart desires. It won't work."

"The man from the Kremlin, the prisoner…" Mikheia trailed off.

"The half-naked loon in women's trousers? What about him?"

"He—I feel like I know him, somehow."

"Did he look familiar to you?"

"That is the problem," Mikheia looked at him. "He didn't, but, on some level, I knew exactly who he was."

"Then your feelings of unease are unjustified. You don't even know his name."

"No, he told me his name." Mikheia said and Sherlock perked up.

"Really? How odd, he was in no position to…why would he tell you his name?"

"Maybe he wanted someone to know who he was in case he didn't get out. Maybe he wanted me to know his name so he could remember that he had one."

"Understandable. A man trapped in the bowels of a government facility where he was most likely tested on escapes and finds that his best bet for rescue in the off-chance that he doesn't make it would be to tell someone his name. Make his mark. Leave evidence that he existed."

Sherlock looked at Mikheia, who scratched at his collar.

"What was his name?"

Mikheia glanced at him then shrugged.

"John."

_John…_

No. impossible.

"Did he…have a last name?"

Mikheia turned at the quietness of Sherlock's voice.

"No. He didn't tell me."

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks so much to all my reviewers! You all are so wonderful, you really are.<strong>


	8. silt

He was drowning, choking on the waters of the Pech. He remembered the graze of Sherlock's lips on his, the sunlight hitting those fluctuating eyes, the sound of his voice—and then he had been pulled into the water like a fish on a line, helpless and flailing as Sherlock watched him from the shore with the saddest, loneliest expression on his face. John could die happily, thrashing about in the water, if it meant he didn't see such utter desolation cross that perfect face again.

The water was heavy with mud and dirt and sand, clogging in his lungs as he was dragged to the bottom of the river. Heavy iron arms wrapped around him, holding him down, pinned against the sand and squeezing the air out of his lungs before they grew soft and pliant, pale and long like bleached bones made of light. John turned his head.

Sherlock lay behind him, John's weight settling over him in the dark water. He was suspended in form, dark hair floating above him, his face peaceable like an angel descending to earth in clouds of fractal light and geometric entanglements of air. John tried to swim up, but Sherlock's grip tightened, keeping them trapped as they settled into the river's bottom. He struggled against Sherlock's arms, but to no avail; it was as if Sherlock's bones were made of steel. As the air burned in John's lungs, he relented, settling into those long arms. If he were truly to die, if these were his final moments, there was nowhere else he'd rather be.

He turned his head as much as he could and ran his fingers over Sherlock's unmoving face, across a cheekbone and wiping a strand of hair away. He pressed his face into the curve of Sherlock's neck, feeling his lungs darkening, his heart slowing, and he felt better than he had in years, knowing that they were going together.

This wasn't the end, for either of them.

Silt billowed around him like smoke as John pushed off of the bottom, the water streaming across his face as they rose upwards, bringing himself and Sherlock out of the murky depths and into the light. As they hurtled towards the light, Sherlock jerked back suddenly, as if the brightness stung him, and sent John tearing out of his arms. As the fire of oxygen deprivation seared through him, sending his blood into a slow burn, John doubled back and darted to his friend, reaching a hand out to grab him.

Closer, closer, _closer_, almost—

As he grazed Sherlock's sleeve, John was sucked into the surface.

* * *

><p>John woke with a great gasp, feeling the residue of dried tears staining his face, something he hadn't experience for almost three years.<p>

"Sherlock?" He croaked quietly, his voice hoarse.

Someone beside him leaned forward and offered him water, which he gladly took. He squinted where a silhouette sat in front of thin curtains, light gleaming behind them, illuminating them like sunlight through a closed eyelid.

A cool hand touched his forehead. Thin fingers, but average length, not long and spindly like Sherlock's, which must mean—

"Mary."

She smiled, patting down a wayward lock of hair. John could feel the grime of dried sweat all over him.

"Hello, love. You had us worried."

"What happened?"

"After we got you out of Novgorod you became sick, very, very sick. We were told it was your body trying to get rid of whatever was put into you."

"Do you know what it was?"

"No," Mary said, pursing her lips, "but the attending doctor seemed to think it was a combination of hallucinogens and a chemically altered epinephrine synthetic."

"You're telling me they gave me a hallucinogen-adrenaline cocktail and I didn't immediately keel over where I stood?"

"Consider yourself lucky." Mary said, standing and opening a plain folder that lay on the table in front of her. "Now that you're awake we'll be getting you out of here as soon as possible."

"You won't get an argument from me. Where?"

"Bruges."

Silence.

"You're joking."

"I'm not joking, John. They won't be looking for you in Bruges."

"Who in their right mind would go to Bruges?"

"That's the point."

"When do I leave?"

"If you can get up and move without nausea or vertigo, hopefully by tonight."

"You couldn't move me while I was unconscious?"

"I don't think you comprehend just how sick you were, John. You kept muttering about how you were bleeding all over and we even stripped you, but there weren't any wounds to find. You were yelling for water and we brought you some but you coughed it up like it was poison. We were worried you were becoming hydrophobic and possibly even rabid from the way you were shaking. You—" Mary's voice turned soft, quiet. "You kept asking for Sherlock."

John shut his eyes.

"John, we can talk about it you know. If you want to, I mean. I'm here for you—"

"He was right there, Mary." John said quietly, opening his mouth to talk before finding there was nothing to say.

Mary sighed, sadness in her breath. Sadness for him.

"I know it hurts, and I know I can't say anything to make it go away, but I'll tell you this, John. He loved you. I know he loved you. And whatever you feel for him, if it's not love, then it's damn well close to devotion. You are the most loyal, most hard-working, most honest man that I've ever seen, and I've seen more than most would care to. I know you're destroying yourself over him, and it's pointless to tell you that he wouldn't want that, because you know that already. And, from what I gather, he'd feel rather self-important about it, so you'd only be inflating his ego."

"You've got a point, there." John said with a sad grin. Mary looked down at him for a moment.

"You don't owe me anything, but will you please go to Bruges for me? You'll be safe there. You can relax and do whatever you want. I can only grant you clearance for so long, so you have to leave as soon as possible." Her face turned softer now, the seriousness draining out. "I wouldn't be doing this for you if I didn't care, John. The agency wasn't thrilled about you getting caught, but they're not going to leave you to flounder."

"Because I'm still useful?" John smiled bitterly.

"Because you're good at what you do. Because there hasn't been one like you and there probably never will be."

Mary stood.

"The train leaves tonight and all I ask is that you're on it."

John looked at her a moment. She cared about him, about whether he lived or died, she cared that this longing was killing him slowly, that—what had Sherlock said?—that the kindness was bleeding out of him. She cared, and he had to do this for her.

"I'll try."

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry for the shortness of this chapter! I wanted to focus on Mary and John's relationship for a moment before jumping into what's going to happen in Bruges, because John will need her there more than ever.<strong>

To gole, thank you for the compliments (I couldn't reply to you since you weren't signed in)! Also, with my other Sherlock story that you reviewed, you're rather right, I did end it on a vague note, but we'll see how this story turns up and I just might go back and add something to 'Come Back'. Thanks again!


	9. black coffee

Sherlock closed his eyes and slowly rolled his neck. A cup of steaming black espresso sat in front of him, rocking slightly as the train rattled on the tracks. Mikheia was speaking amiably with a waiter at the bar of the dining car, gesturing to the pot of warm coffee before coming to sit in the booth they now occupied.

He wondered why he had allowed the boy to tag along.

"One cube or two?" The waiter asked as he set a cup of coffee down in front of Mikheia and held out a sugar bowl.

"Ah, no, thank you." Mikheia waved it off politely. "I do not like sugar."

Admit it. You keep him around because he reminds you of John.

Mikheia caught Sherlock's slight smile as he stirred in his milk.

"You are not normally a smiling person. What has made you so happy?"

"It's nothing, just…I have a friend who doesn't like sugar as well."

Mikheia made an amused face and stared at him a moment, drumming his spoon on his cup absentmindedly.

"Most people do not remember such inconsequential things about their friends." He said with a grin. "That means either you are attentive, which I don't doubt, or you do not have many friends to remember things about, so you like to memorise the little things, which I also don't doubt."

"You're right on both counts. I suppose my prowess has rubbed off on you."

"You can't be held accountable for all the intellect in the world, sir."

"No, only most of it."

"You have never cared much for friends, have you? Or personal relationships?" Mikheia frowned then. "Never mind, that is too personal of a question. Forget I asked—"

"No, by all means, keep going. You're on a streak."

Mikheia paused, unsure of how to continue. He was considering Sherlock's feelings, something people usually tended not to do. How quaint.

"This friend…he is special to you."

"How do you know he's a 'he'?"

"I did not at first, but now you just told me so." Mikheia said with a grin. "This man is important to you, since you know that he does not like sugar in his coffee—well, tea, since you are British, yes?—but you got this face when you told me about him just now. I have seen you with this face before, sometimes when you think I am not looking or sometimes not, and now I know that you are thinking of him." Mikheia took a sip of coffee then leaned forward with a smile. "Do you love him?"

Sherlock scoffed.

"Pity," He sneered. "I thought you were right on the mark too until that came out."

Why was he being so hostile about something so trivial? But…it was about John. John was never trivial. This was poking at a wound still bruised, purple and yellow and not healing, not even close to healing.

"It is alright if you do." Mikheia shrugged. "Love is love, whatever you want to call it. You can love him like a brother or like a husband; you can love him however you like. It all means the same to me."

"And what if I did?" Sherlock asked lowly.

Mikheia's gaze snapped to him and a sly smile came on his face.

"You are a cruel man, Mr. Holmes. You had me thinking I was incorrect in my theories."

"Cruelty would imply that I deliberately intended for you to feel pain. I merely wished to state that you are not incorrect, but you were not correct either."

"If you _did_ love him, then what does it matter to me? What does it matter to anyone? Does he love you?"

"He often showed an immeasurable devotion and infinite loyalty, yes."

"Is that how you classify love, sir?"

"How would _you_ classify it?"

"I did the asking first."

"I'd like to hear your answer."

Mikheia tapped on his cup, thinking for a moment.

"Love is…it is…" He paused and then began to laugh. "That's what it is! Something that can't be stuffed into words. It is what you feel when you come home and someone is waiting for you. It is what you feel when you've been out in the cold and go somewhere warm. It is what you feel when you eat after a long hunger. That is love."

Sherlock had not moved for the entire speech.

"Interesting." He said finally.

"You think I am stupid?"

"No," Sherlock said, leaning forward. "No I think you're smarter than you've led me to believe. Most interesting…"

"And love? What is it to you?"

Sherlock stared.

What was it to him?

As someone who had never experienced it himself, he couldn't describe it out of a first-hand account. Love was as foreign to him as decaffeinated tea or unused laboratory equipment or not having a body part in the refrigerator.

He couldn't confine love to any constrictions. He had to work with what he was familiar with. He'd have to start with what made him comfortable and then work his way up from there.

What made him comfortable?

Violin. His chair. Petri dishes. Tea. Nicotine patches. Striped jumpers. Medical dictionaries. Dodger blue eyes. Libraries. Beige jumpers. Sheets of music. His riding crop. Any kind of jumper, so long as it was John's—

John.

There was a start.

John made him comfortable. John made everything seem comfortable. He could have told Sherlock that he had just drawn a bath of liquid lava, rusty knives and hypodermic needles and that it was utterly heavenly and Sherlock would have given it a try, because if John liked it, Sherlock wanted to like it.

Now…what made him uncomfortable?

Decaffeinated anything. Every person on the planet. Wait. No. Every person except John and maybe even Mikheia. Crying anything. Jackets with fake fur on the hood that were so puffy you didn't know what was underneath. Sickness. Not being able to smoke anymore. Indiana. Mycroft's 'assistants'. Being beaten (by anyone). Cabbies. Incorrect change. Westwood. Anything not John.

And so he was entering into unknown territory, a veritable no-man's-land where the next step he trod could be his last. But he would do it, for John if not for himself.

It could be argued that everything he did was for John, which was an abnormal thing in itself because he never did anything for anyone.

But John. John Watson was special. Very special. The _most_ special thing to ever have existed in the history of histories.

Was that his answer?

Sherlock blinked.

Only 2.234 seconds had passed since Mikheia had asked his question.

"Love is a liability." He said finally, his voice bland and cold.

Mikheia sipped his coffee in response.

"You will be pardoning me because I do not believe you, sir."

"Why is that?"

A smile bloomed on Mikheia's face.

"Because I know you are lying."

"Really? Tell me how."

"I do not need to tell how or where or why or when. It is obvious."

"Obvious." Sherlock repeated.

"You have been threatened with love before, and you ran away because you were afraid. But I know that you are not a coward and that your tail would never be caught between your legs, so you ran for someone else. For who?"

"For _whom_."

"For _whom_? For this friend? For your only friend? That would be my best of guesses."

"I ran from him._ For_ him." Sherlock admitted quietly. "I could not be trusted with his life any longer. I think you'll find that I am most careless with the things that have the most value."

"Does he know why you fled?"

John's face above him, utterly desolate, utterly devastated, utterly _destroyed _as he grasped at a pulse that Sherlock had been sure to erase.

"No."

"And it hurts you?"

"Yes."

"And, if he was here, right now, would that hurt be less?"

"Yes."

"That is why I do not believe you." Mikheia paused, wading the waters to neutral reception. He continued. "You are in love and you do not want to admit it because it is dangerous right now. But there will be a time when it will not be so. There will be a time for you to love without consequence. You went to Novgorod for a reason. You are here for a reason. And that reason is why love is _not_ a liability to you."

"How can you be so sure?" Sherlock asked, narrowing his eyes in what was supposed to be a penetrating stare but ended up looking to Mikheia like he was just squinting into bright sunlight. "How can you know that it won't have a consequence, when everything you could possibly fathom has a conceivable consequence?"

"It might." Mikheia admitted. "_But_, the funny thing about love is that if there is a consequence, you do not notice it."

* * *

><p><strong>Apologies! I know it seemed that Bruges was next, but I felt that if John and Mary got their interlude, then Sherlock and Mikheia deserved one as well. Bruges is definitely next though!<em> pinky promise<em>**

**Thank you to rainbowcapillaries for bearing with my rant and being so gracious with yours!**


	10. in bruges

"**Ray**: Bruges is a shithole.

**Ken**: Bruges is _not_ a shithole.

**Ray**: Bruges_ is_ a shithole.

**Ken**: Ray, we only just got off the fucking train! Could we reserve judgment on Bruges until we've seen the fucking place?"

- _In Bruges_

**Fun fact: **_** In Bruges**_** is one of my favourite movies, ever. I loved having an excuse to watch it so I could write this!**

* * *

><p>"Coffee?"<p>

John snapped awake, turning to groggily look up.

"No…thanks." He mumbled before he realized that the waiter had not been talking to him, but to another booth further down. John sighed, burrowing into the corner of his booth between the wall and window. He loved corners. It meant your back was guarded and no one could sneak up on you. Of course when you were stuck in one that was another matter.

He was awake now, and that meant no going back to sleep.

He stared out of the window at the dark landscape passing before him, obscured by the light of the dining car he was in. He must have fallen asleep there after dinner, and if the waiter hadn't woken him, he probably would have stayed that way until Klaipeda.

He felt like shit. Like he had slept in a rubbish bin full of liquid putrefaction that clogged his senses and had only woken when it was being compacted in the back of the truck, squeezing his head so tightly it felt like there wasn't even space for his own brain anymore.

Mary had warned him that this would happen. She had warned him about the side effects that would take the piss out of him until his body got it fully out of his system. He was very tempted in fact to run to the lavatory and hurl his dinner up until he felt better, but he didn't want to make a mess for someone else to clean up, much less get out of his warm, cosy seat to toss his stomach up on cold tile.

Mary hadn't been lying when she'd told him his detox would be hell. After pumping him full of electrolytes and mild rehydration fluids, they had sent him on his merry way, except it wasn't so merry at all, it was rather miserable. And he knew he had to suffer through it, because what good would complaining do? No one would care.

And so he burned quietly.

And so he bled quietly.

He didn't know when he was waking or dreaming as the hours passed and the train rocked and his face pressed against the cool glass. Images, silhouettes, passed by, blurred and reflected in the glass. He heard the swishing of clothing, felt the cool air as people passed, heard the floor creak under their steps. A handful of times he heard the distinct flutter of heavy coats and saw blurred swatches of black amidst pale skin.

So he pretended it was Sherlock, pacing about like a mother hen and worrying over his recovery. He chuckled.

He slept.

He dreamed.

He woke.

He began it all again.

* * *

><p>John stood on the cobblestone bridge outside his hotel, the fresh wind brushing his face as he stared out over the muted green canal. The day was overcast, slightly cool, but nice.<p>

He liked Bruges. It was free and open and peaceful and quiet. He needed all of those things right now. His head still hurt, but the pain was considerably less. He could feel it bleeding out of him, dripping from his fingertips like hot wax and leaving a calm coolness in its place.

He should call Mary, and let her know he was alright, but that would be silly. She would have access to the hotel records; she'd know he had checked in.

He should call Molly back, but that was just as silly as calling Mary since he had no idea what to say and the kindness of the gesture would be lost in the subsequent awkwardness. He couldn't deal with formalities right now.

He was back in his room.

The vaulted wooden ceiling. The lone spherical shelled light. The plain white walls. The plain, modest bed covered with a soft, welcoming duvet. Modern, but comfortable. It was more accommodating than he had expected.

There was a note on his bed, folded neatly and sealed with a thin blue wax.

Apparently the agency was wasting no time in using his sick leave to their advantage.

* * *

><p>It was a church. That surprised him. Usually the agency was as politically correct as possible; they liked to keep their hands as clean as they could. He supposed this person rather deserved what was coming to them, then.<p>

It was large and looming and impressive, just like any other old building, but John appreciated the architecture, dark brick and stones lined with silver and gold. It was small, like nearly every other building in the old parts of Bruges, but it was ominous in its simplicity.

Getting in was no problem. It was nearly empty at this hour anyways, between masses. All he had to do was slip into a side door. The instructions led him to a small, narrow stairwell and he climbed, clutching his bag so it wouldn't rattle.

His head began to hurt again and he felt himself sway on his feet as he reached the landing. He paused a moment, laying a hand on the cold stone of the stairwell, before he quietly opened the door.

He came out at a small balcony, secluded and tiny, which allowed him the utmost privacy. Quietly, he assembled his gun, smoothing the well-oiled parts together as if he were forming them from primordial clay.

The ceiling was vaulted, which was a slight problem, but not an obstacle. It would create an echoing noise that was sure to be heard. And since his position was so isolated, all eyes would turn, after the initial shock of seeing someone's brains on the floor, to where the noise had come from, which would lead them to him. He would have to be prepared to aim, shoot, and run as fast as he could.

As he adjusted his scope, his phone buzzed.

_Your target is below, in the fifth pew. Black coat, blue scarf._

John leaned over the banister and counted the pews beneath the rim of his hat.

He aligned his scope.

His hands started to shake.

_No…_

He lowered the gun.

He ducked back down, out of sight, and stared through the limbs of the banister at that curly dark hair, at that pale face, at those long legs tucked under the pew in front of him, at that man that was currently not giving a care in the world, as if John's life hadn't slipped off the banister and shattered to pieces in front of him.

As if everything was normal.

He had to get out, before he was spotted. He had to get out before he got violently, violently sick.

His head pounded. His throat tightened as he stared at those broken pieces of his life as they lay on the floor at the man's feet, shimmering weakly in the light, the same colour, the same shining cadet grey as his eyes. He felt his lips move in a fervent whisper.

"Sherlock."

* * *

><p><strong>I am very, very, <em>very<em> sorry that this is so short! I'm going away for the weekend, and I don't have time to finish, but I wanted to leave you all with _something_ this weekend! Please consider this a part one to the Bruges Arc.**


	11. soy and squid

**"[Bruges] is a fairytale town, isn't it? How's a fairytale town not somebody's fucking thing?"**

**-Ralph Fiennes (_In Bruges)_**

* * *

><p>John stumbled out of the church into a side alley and collapsed on his knees, ready to lose his stomach on the pavement, but instead got stuck dry-heaving a breakfast he hadn't eaten. He didn't like to eat before he went out on an assignment. It made him feel slow and heavy.<p>

He wanted so many things at the moment. He wanted to burst inside and see if what he saw was real, he wanted to go pick a fight with whoever was closest so he could get hit, see stars, feel pain, and know this wasn't just a dream like he feared, and he wanted to go back to the hotel and crawl into bed and lay there forever.

But John Watson did none of those things.

He sat in that alley, curled against the wall.

He sat, and didn't stop the tears when they fell.

He sat, and he mourned for his best friend for the first proper time in three years. He mourned for the days he spent doubting himself, thinking Sherlock was dead, and he mourned for that living, breathing man sitting in the church for god knows what reason, because he had now been sentenced to death. John didn't know for what, but if anyone had international enemies, it would be Sherlock.

John was Atlas and the weight of the world had collapsed on him. He felt heavy, his chest felt full of lead, full of heartache and suffering and pain as the heavens crashed down on him and he buckled under its weight, unable to hold it up any longer. He tasted the salty dirt of grief, the iron of blood, the taste of pain and tears and suffering.

All those days of wondering, all those days of loneliness, and Sherlock had been just as alive as he'd ever been. How could John not have figured it out? How many times had he passed Sherlock in the street and not noticed? Relief should not feel this awful, knowing that Sherlock was alive and that the only thing separating them was an old brick wall. But it wasn't just the wall that separated them. It was circumstance. Sherlock was alive, and only because John had not killed him like he was ordered to.

Sherlock was alive.

Sherlock was alive.

Sherlock was _alive_.

And what had John done? John had run away.

But John had also let him live. He had spared him, and now Sherlock owed him his life, not that he would ever have pulled that trigger.

John started, realising suddenly just what he had done.

_He had spared Sherlock's life_.

_Fuck._

He was so _fucked_. So utterly and completely fucked. So fucked that he needed to invent a new word just to describe the extent of how fucked he was.

The agency would not allow Sherlock to live. If John couldn't do it, then they would find someone that would. He could tell them all sorts of stories. The target was a no-show, the shot wasn't clear, the risk of civilian casualties was too great—

But no. No. Those wouldn't work. The agency _knew_ his history, knew his whole life because he had to disclose it when they hired him. They _knew_ his relation to Sherlock Holmes, knew they had lived together, knew what they had done (all of London did anyways), and they knew he had requested that the assignments be complete strangers to him. They knew that he wouldn't take Sherlock out.

They _knew_. So why did they assign it to him?

He had to get back to the hotel.

He had to talk to Mary.

* * *

><p>Sherlock yawned.<p>

_Boring_.

Mikheia had dragged him to the nearest Orthodox church that morning to receive communion, but they had arrived late, so now he was meeting with the priest to get it. Why a little piece of bread and watered down wine was important to his everlasting soul, Sherlock didn't know or care, but it made Mikheia less anxious and jittery, so he went along with it. And Mikheia agreed to take him to the Russian consulate to find his next contact, so Sherlock supposed that this was his way of thanking him.

The church was well built, structurally sound, and had a pleasant darkness about it. Everything was wooden and old and creaked like the church's old bones when it got up in the morning. Sherlock quite liked old, wooden, creaky things. He liked the idea that someone once sat where he sat and was just as bored as he was. The brotherhood of the bored, externally coerced churchgoers.

The people inside weren't interesting. A widow with three children, one cat, who had burned their breakfast that morning, a meal of bread and eggs, in their kitchen of a flat three blocks south. A man who came here without his wife because she was sick—no, she's having an affair with their neighbour and faked illness for a quick tryst—who rolled his own tobacco and favoured the brothel two streets away after Sunday services.

Sherlock smirked. How dull their lives must be.

Something moved in the balcony to his left and he paused, listening closer. Footsteps, brown suede trainers—size 11—jeans, pressed shirt, possibly a woollen jumper as well. They fidgeted with something, possibly a camera from the way it was being assembled with precise twists and turns. He heard them pause a moment, a still silence settling over the church, before they quietly packed their equipment back up and left in a hurry.

Odd. This place was certainly aesthetically pleasing enough for a photograph. Maybe the shot wasn't as good on the balcony as elsewhere in the church.

He sniffed. Whoever it was used a similar shampoo to John's, a plain, unscented brand that smelled only of cleanliness. Sherlock had never told John how much he liked the smell, how peaceable it was and so unornamented that it complimented anything it was put with. In a way, it was much like John himself.

"_You're tofu, John. Did you know that?"_

Sherlock smiled at the memory.

He and John has been sitting in their flat, eating Chinese food after a particularly exhilarating encounter with a pair of thieves that liked to use acrobatics in their heists.

"Sorry?" John asked as he spooned a forkful of noodles into his mouth.

"You are tofu." Sherlock repeated calmly.

"Alright." John said, mildly confused, before returning to his plate. "Why, exactly?"

"You lack so much taste that you go with everything."

"That doesn't sound like a compliment."

"It's not. It's a statement of fact."

"Last I checked I was human, Sherlock, not a soy curd."

"I meant personality-wise."

"You said I lack taste?"

"Yes. And with the colour jumpers you wear, I'd say you rather look like a soy curd too."

John gave a sigh then resumed eating.

"I don't see how I'm supposed to take this."

"See, John? _See_? The neutrality of your response negates your argument." Sherlock scooted closer out of the excitement of explanation. He liked the look in John's eyes as he _got_ something, the moment he understood it. "You are so devoid of any defining characteristic that you can confine to anything you'd like, so long as it suits you. Therefore, you are tofu."

_There_ was the look, the comprehensive sun dawning on John's face.

Instead of being offended, like most people, John smiled. Then again, John was not most people. He was special. He would always be special.

"Well if I'm tofu, you're squid." John said, picking an egg roll out of the box.

"Explain."

John chewed a moment, thinking.

"Not a lot of people like squid. They don't have the palate for it. It's slippery and you can never pin it down, so it kind of just slides around too much for you to bite into it. But once you actually get used to the texture, the taste is quite good."

Sherlock stared at him a moment before he grinned.

"Squid. I think that may be the nicest thing anyone's called me. _Squid_." He repeated, tasting the word, his smile marginally broadening.

"I suppose it goes well with tofu then." John said, smiling back.

"They go together so well that one would ever want to eat anything again after they tried it. Pass me an egg roll."

Sherlock blinked, snapping back from that comfortable kitchen on Baker Street, to this airy, dark cathedral in Belgium, so far away from home. So far away from John.

Mikheia was walking back up to aisle to him and he stood.

"Did you have fun?" Sherlock asked bitingly, buttoning up his coat. "I trust the wafer and wine were as mediocre as anywhere else."

"You should not be so critical, sir. Maybe if you tried it once, you'd like it."

"Unlikely. I can't stomach cannibalism; eating the body and blood of a dead man. I'm more of a soy-based product fan myself. Much more humane."

Mikheia gave him an utterly confounded look, like Sherlock had just sprouted a horned second head.

"What is soy?"

* * *

><p>Mary was waiting for him. He was surprised, but knew he shouldn't be. She was always close by.<p>

"Hello, John."

"What game are they trying to get me to play, Mary?" He asked, tossing his bag in a chair by the door and tearing off his cap.

John—"

"They told me to _shoot_ Sherlock. They told me to _murder_ my best friend who, by the way, until recently I thought was dead and buried-"

"So it's murder now, if you know the target personally?"

Her question caught him off-guard.

"The agency knew I would never, _never_, have completed this assignment, so I don't know what they're getting at—" John stopped. "But you do, don't you Mary?"

She looked at him rather forlornly and he realised that she had been keeping a great and terrible secret from him.

"We have a lot to talk about John. A lot of things to tell you that we couldn't before. That I couldn't."

"Well, we've got time now. So I think you can start."

Mary hesitated, then began.

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you to everyone who reviewed! I <em>loved<em> your freakouts!**

**To the anon who messaged me: Yes, feel free to submit fanart for this! I was so flattered that you asked!**

**To the-sun-will-always-shine: Unfortunately (or fortunately), the ending of this story won't mirror the one of _In Bruges _(that would be far too cruel), but I suppose you'll have to wait and see if there's any other parallels! Thanks for the comment!**


	12. the ambassador

"**Priest**: For money? You murdered someone for money?

**Ray**: Yes, father. Not out of anger. Not out of nothing. For money.

**Priest**: Who did you murder for money, Raymond?

**Ray**: You, father.

**Priest**: I'm sorry?

**Ray**: I said _you_, father. What are you, deaf?

Ciarán Hinds and Colin Farrell - _In Bruges_

* * *

><p>His practise assignment had been difficult to say the least.<p>

The agency had been impressed by his 'unofficial' work, and so they sent a recruiter to pick him up. Fleetingly, he thought that there was a distant woman inside that black car who would take him to Mycroft, but then he reminded himself that Sherlock was dead, so Mycroft had no business with him anymore.

Imagine his surprise when he got out of the car to find Mycroft Holmes himself waiting for him.

"A pleasure, John." Mycroft said with a pained smile that suggested this visit was anything but. John stared at him, flabbergasted. "Loquacious as always, I see."

"What are you doing here?"

"My job. As are you."

"You hired _me_?" John laughed incredulously. "Unbelievable."

"No, I'm afraid I did not hire you. I'm afraid I can only waylay you from your real appointment for a brief amount of time." He tapped his umbrella on the ground. "No, I am here because your agency wanted me to assure you that if the situation gets out of control I can contain it easily, and faster than most."

"Because of your 'minor' government position?"

"No." Mycroft responded coolly. "Because I know you, John."

"You think I'll fail?"

"No, no, I think you'll pass with flying colours. I'm concerned with what happens afterwards."

"Don't tell me you actually care what happens to me now, Mycroft. I mean, Sherlock's—he's not here anymore. What could I possibly matter to you?"

"You matter a great deal to me, John, both sentimentally and pragmatically."

John couldn't have believed him less.

"Tell me the truth."

"You meant more to Sherlock that he would ever admit. I wish to thank you for your…companionship."

"And checking in on me from time to time to get something out of me is your idea of a thank you?"

"There are worse things. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Are you…threatening me?"

"Don't be silly, John. Why would I threaten someone who is on my side? Furthermore, threats are what thugs and ineffective mobsters use for immediate coercion. I am not a thug or ineffective."

"I thought you said you wouldn't protect me."

"I believe what I queried you was if you had come to me expecting protection. I never refused it, and I never will, unless you've gotten yourself into an awful mess. But you are smart, John. I trust you to make correct decisions."

"You trust me?"

"You warned me once, John, and that was enough. You didn't _have_ to inform me of your…activities, but you felt it prudent that I know all the same. Your visit told me everything I needed to know. I know very well what you are capable of, and what you aren't. You're a soldier, a good one by both record and action, and I know that you will do the right thing."

"You know what I told the agency, then? You know that I'm not going after innocents. No political figures, either, if I can help it."

"Yes."

"I'll leave you alone." John said solemnly. "I won't bother you. Let me do my job so you can do yours."

"Oh, on the contrary, John, I think you'll be making my field quite extinct by the time you're done."

"Sorry."

"There's nothing to apologise for. Some of them deserve it." Mycroft produced a small folded piece of paper, thick and expensive, sealed with blue wax. After that first sighting, John would always know what it held. "Take care, John." Mycroft said tersely, a polite smile on his face, before John was ushered back into the car, the note, his _first_ note, clutched in his hand.

* * *

><p>It was an ambassador. Clearly the agency was testing how far his morals would stretch. But…it wasn't <em>technically <em>a politician. That was a start.

John had done his research. The ambassador's history was full of kickbacks, embezzlement, and backroom deals that stunk of corruption. The country he represented was in fair standing, economically and socially, and was only going up; he had a successfully corrupt future ahead of him.

John aimed. A man in a crisp suit, walking out of the hotel. Roughly about 100 yards away. He adjusted the scope one click right.

He disconnected.

He fired.

One heartbeat passed.

The man's head exploded with blood and brain and skull fragment, splattering those around him, shocking them, but leaving them unharmed.

The ambassador looked around in wild confusion as he was ushered into a waiting car, alive and wholly undamaged.

He reconnected.

John's phone buzzed as he packed away his equipment.

_You chose wisely. The car is waiting one klick south. Welcome aboard._

The ambassador had not been the true target. The real target was his assistant, the true culprit of the crimes, all done in his name. John had had suspicions from the beginning, and he could tell forgery when he saw it.

John had been right.

The agency had tested him.

* * *

><p>It had been their willingness to sacrifice an innocent man that bothered him the most afterwards. How badly did he need the money of an agency that saw in black and white, an agency that cared nothing for the worth of greyscale?<p>

Then he had met Mary, his recruiter.

She'd been politely detached at first. They all had; cool, distant professionalism was like a second nature to them. After passing his first assignment, she had been in the car, waiting for him. After he reiterated his qualm list, she welcomed him. She smiled, she was patient with him, she was kind and good. John though that it had been an act to lull him into an unsuspecting security, like slipping into a warm bath until you didn't notice the temperature rising, but he quickly realised that was who Mary was. There were no lies in her eyes. It made her well-suited for her job, made her the perfect recruiter.

In the rush of adrenaline, he had blurted out, asking her if she'd like to go out sometime. She had laughed. He liked her laugh. She had accepted. He liked that too, although it had been on strictly platonic terms. They'd gone straight from the agency after he'd gotten a new set of clothes, to the Drop-Off, which they were to visit together in the next three years more than any other customers the owner could remember.

Their friendship was an easy one, a natural one, and it came to them quickly. Mary was easy-going, smart, friendly and calm, and it felt like he had known her his whole life instead of a handful of hours. John had credited that night at the Drop-Off, high on adrenaline and caffeine, as the night that broke him out of the depressed fog he had been living in after Sherlock's fall. Mary had offered her hand to him and he had taken it, using her to lift him out of the sad state his life had been in. He would always remember that night, always remember her smile and laugh and voice just as it was when it was new to him. He would always be indebted to her for what she had done for him.

He wanted to remember her, as she was then, instead of how she was now, sitting in front of him looking utterly miserable.

He still trusted her, despite what she had told him. He still cared for her, despite what had happened to him in the Kremlin. None of that had been her fault. She wasn't responsible. It had been the agency, all the agency's doing, and she was going behind their backs to tell him. She was on his side. Innocent.

"Didn't you ask yourself why they let you go in Novgorod? Why they used tranquilisers?"

"I had other things on my mind."

"We told them who you were."

"I always wondered why you were in that car after my first assignment." He looked at her. "Did they send you on purpose? Try to bait me in with a pretty woman that was as kind and patient as I needed?" He smirked. "It worked. Better than they know."

Mary looked to be on the verge of tears.

"I'm sorry, John."

"You don't need to be."

Mary smiled sadly.

"Doesn't mean I'm not."

* * *

><p>He had let her stay in his room, sleep in his bed. It was safer that way. <em>She<em> was safer that way, better off with him than without. The agency would know that she told him things he shouldn't have heard. They'd be looking for her.

John had popped down to the lobby for a moment to ask for the room service menu. A moment. Only a moment. But that was all they needed.

When he got back, the door wasn't shut all the way. He entered, a heaviness sinking inside him, confirming what he didn't want confirmed.

The menu fell from his hand as he raced to his bedroom, sending the door banging open as he stared into the empty room.

The rumpled sheets had fallen off the bed, kicked off as she had struggled. The pillow was still warm, still smelled of her, the scent light and unencumbered.

He collapsed on the bed, his knees giving out.

Mary was gone.

Gone, and it was all his fault.

All his fault.

John felt his head pound. The heaviness in his stomach twisted painfully. His throat tightened.

On his bed lay a note, folded, but unsealed.

_The church. Midnight. You have a job to finish._

* * *

><p><strong>Hello! Just like to say before someone points it out:<strong>

**The majority of this chapter is a flashback to John's first hit (I think there was some confusion there)**

**(In military terms)**

**A "klick" means a distance of 1000 meters.**

**A "click" determines how far you move the site adjustments of the rifle according to the distance of the target per 100 yards. "One click" will change the point of impact one inch for a target 100 yards away.**


	13. eosophobia

"Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there; I do not sleep."

- Mary Frye

* * *

><p>Sherlock stared silently as Mikheia talked animatedly with the Russian consulate. He shouldn't have been as surprised as he was that he didn't speak much English.<p>

"Would you like to know what he's saying?" Mikheia asked, turning to the bored detective.

"Only if it's interesting."

"International espionage and murder?"

Sherlock sighed. "Continue."

"He said that his ambassador friend's assistant was assassinated a few years ago for laundering money." Mikheia paused, listening, before continuing. "Serves them right, he said, because now they are all too scared to do it anymore."

"Who killed him?"

Mikheia asked the man, who paused before shrugging and answering.

"He said it was a local agency that deals with those types of things, but people are saying it was the Golem. He disagrees."

Sherlock sat up straighter, interested.

"What makes him say that?"

"He says that when he last visited Russia he witnessed the Golem's funeral." Mikheia translated. "But only by accident. He says he does not like to glorify such kinds of things."

"He knows the Golem's real name?"

Mikheia asked and the man paused, thinking.

"Georgei Kurgazov." The man answered before adding something. Sherlock closed his eyes, memorising the name.

"He says Kurgazov visited Bruges often."

Sherlock's eyes snapped open.

"Repeat that. No, don't." He cut off Mikheia as he stood. "That would be pointless. I heard what you said."

Why would the Golem visit Bruges? _Bruges_ of all the places in the whole world? What was so special?

"He says that he thinks Kurgazov had business here."

"Obviously." Sherlock scoffed, already having come to that conclusion. "He didn't have just business. He had a headquarters. Ask him if they have local records of Kurgazov's activities."

"Why?"

"Because we're going to go through them and find his address of operation."

"I do not think they will let us do that, sir."

"Tell them something that will allow us to, then."

Mikheia frowned then turned to the consulate, who answered amicably, with no signs of suspicion.

"What did you tell him?" Sherlock asked as they followed the consul from the room.

"I told him that we are CIA agents."

"No, really, what did you tell him?"

"I thought you would like the idea of being in the CIA, sir. People do not generally question American intelligence operations, do they?"

"You really told him that..." Sherlock realised quietly. This boy's audacity was quiet admirable. He lied so outlandishly that he must be believed.

Mikheia smiled.

"It worked, did it not?"

* * *

><p>"Tell me." The voice said. It was dark, feral, dangerous.<p>

"I already did!" The man gasped. "I don't know, I don't know what they are doing—"

"They won't be happy with what you've already told me, so you may as well continue. Now..._t__ell me_." The voice said more forcefully, followed by a cry of pain.

"Conditioning!" The man groaned. "It was conditioning."

"Why?"

Silence.

"To see how far they could push you. How far you'd go when you were unstable. If you would forget your morals."

"What are they planning next?"

"They're going to try to break you."

"Break me?" The voice barked in amusement. "They're going to have to find me first."

The voice leaned in close to his face. He could feel their breath, cold on his cheek.

"Tell them I'll be waiting." The voice hissed.

Something sliced through the man's bonds and they fell to the floor, clattering in the darkness.

The door slammed shut.

* * *

><p>The church was quiet at the late hour, silence settling over like dust. It was cold, silent, pregnant and swollen with anxiety.<p>

Mikheia paced behind Sherlock, scratching at his collar.

"Stop that."

"I cannot help it, sir."

"It'll be fine. Stop it."

"How is your stomach not full of monarchs?"

"It's 'stomach full of butterflies', but the idea of the Queen running around your digestive tract is far more amusing."

"At least you have a sense of humour tonight…" He trailed off, looking over at the woman, who was staring blankly ahead at the crucifix suspended on the wall above the altar, a makeshift gag tied around her mouth. He walked over and sat beside her, placing his gun on the far end of the bench so he wouldn't frighten her. "Are you alright?"

She nodded.

"Do you need anything? Water or the bathroom or something?"

She shook her head.

"Mikheia," Sherlock said, rolling his eyes, "She's a hostage, not a child."

"We took her against her will, sir. We owe her small comforts."

He turned back to her.

"Your friend will come for you and you can go home. We are not going to hurt you. You know this, yes?"

She nodded carefully. He liked the colour of her eyes, a light brown, like an almond pastry. He was rather hungry, not having much of an appetite at dinner after Sherlock had told him what they were to do that night.

"We have no qualm with you. We only want to talk to that man that you have been helping. He knows where the Golem is, see, or we think he might be—"

Mikheia stopped, freezing as a door behind them creaked open and slammed shut.

The church was as quiet as a freshly filled grave.

"_Golem_!" Sherlock shouted, his voice echoing through the silence. He raised his gun, easy enough to obtain, and even easier to steal. He'd have to thank Mikheia later for his suspension of good conscience.

A figure began to approach him through the darkness, their footsteps echoing on the tiles, but stopped.

"What, are you eosophobic now too?" Sherlock smirked, trying to goad him out into the open.

"You could say that."

The voice that answered him was not Slavic or Russian or even Eastern European. Sherlock could place it, certainly, right down to the neighbourhood, but he didn't want to.

When the Golem, the man that struck fear into the hearts of millions, the man known for his unmerciful, fearless brutality, stepped into the light, he was not the man that Sherlock had once met. He was not inhumanly tall, his limbs were not long and gangly and his face was hollow, yes, but with something other than tall cheekbones and sharp facial features, hollow with the heaviness of a burdensome life. This Golem was no myth. He was a man. He was a man that Sherlock knew well, a man he valued above all others, a man he loved.

As the Golem stepped into the light, Sherlock lowered his gun. His hands were shaking.

"John."

John Watson looked at him, his eyes blank.

John Watson raised his gun and fired.

* * *

><p><strong>I am such a bastard, but I have been waiting for this moment for <em>so<em> long. _SO. _Long. I actually started this whole story with this chapter. Please tell me what you think!**


	14. veins and vessels

"When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft star-shine at night."

- Mary Frye

* * *

><p>Sherlock felt as he once did in that moment of freefall, that moment he tipped forward and sent himself falling off the roof of St. Bart's three years ago when he knew there was no going back. The moment he had ceded control to gravity, the moment he had given the reins to chaos and let himself fall.<p>

Of course, he had still been in control of the situation then.

As John aimed his gun and fired at him, he decided that such was not the case now.

He felt the bullet burn past his cheek before embedding into the shoulder of the man behind him that Sherlock had not noticed until he felt blood his splattering on the back of his neck.

"Sherlock,_ run_!" John yelled, waving his gun towards the door. Sherlock didn't like the look in his eyes, a calm determinant anchored in the deep blue. "You need to get Mary and get out of here before more of them come."

The first thing John has said to him in three years. Three. Years. Over one thousand days. And he tells him to run.

"Mikheia," Sherlock strode over to the boy, picking up his discarded gun off the bench and handing it to him. "Take her and go."

Mikheia was silent for a moment, staring at the man who was writhing on the floor.

"Where am I to go?"

"The hotel." John decided. "Get back to the hotel."

"But what if they are waiting with more—"

"Just do it!" John snapped before heading over to Mary and untying her gag. "Mary, you know how to get back?"

"Yes." She answered hoarsely. "John, you'll be careful right? You know what you're dealing with?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll be fine. Watch your back, and make sure he keeps his gun out." John turned to Mikheia. "You'll be safe with her, and she'll be safe with you. If she gets hurt, it'll be on you, understand?"

Mikheia nodded. Mary stepped forward and hugged John before kissing him on the cheek and leading Mikheia out the doors and into the night.

For the first time in three years, Sherlock and John were alone together.

"You can still leave." John said quietly, his voice echoing in the hollow church.

"I have no intention of fleeing and leaving you defenceless."

"Sherlock," John's tone was heavy with warning. "Don't—"

"I will not leave you again, John." He said resolutely, striding over to his friend. "Tell me what's happening."

"The agency is coming after you for prying, Mary for talking, and me for listening." John said, scanning the shadows of the church, empty save for the groaning man on the ground. "I don't know who exactly they're planning to target, but by process of elimination it must be you."

"What is the agency?"

"The short version? A business of conscribed international hitmen."

"What do you have to do with them?"

"I work for them."

"You _what_?"

John registered the clicking of cocking hammers for one split second before—

"Get down!" John yelled, tackling Sherlock to the ground and pushing him beneath a row of pews as bullets sprayed around them, tearing the tops of the benches and showering them with splinters and chunks of wood. Sherlock watched as John rolled onto his stomach, aimed, and concisely sent precise bullets into each leg he saw from under the benches, firing more as their heads appeared. Then he was clutching at Sherlock's sleeve, pulling him up and away.

Sherlock could only stare at the bodies, at the pulpy blood oozing from their faces, pooling beneath them.

"Sherlock, come on!"

He snapped out of his hazy shock, filing it away. Something to feel later. Was this what John did? How he coped?

John burst through the doors, Sherlock in tow, into an empty street. A car passed by, ignorant of the carnage the church had just suffered through. There was fresh blood smeared across the cobblestones at their feet. Someone was wounded, but they had gotten away. If it was Mikheia, Sherlock had a mind to go back into the church and take on whatever faced him, but John was pulling at his sleeve, clutching his hand, and dragging him back into the veins and vessels of Bruges. John was _here_, John was with him now, John was saving his life.

Birds scattered, flying against the night, as they began to run.

John darted into a side alley and then another and another, flowing through like he had them memorised, but further analysis proved he was running blindly, trying to rid them of whomever may have followed, before finally coming out into a small deserted canal and stopping. Sherlock slumped against the wall. His knees were weak. How odd.

"Are you alright?" John asked.

Was he alright? No. No, he was far from alright. John was suddenly back in his life, suddenly right there in front of him, acting like nothing had happened, like nothing had changed, but everything had changed, _everything_, and now it was him leading their adventure and not Sherlock. It was John in charge, John knowing what to do, John taking care of him now. It was John firing bullets into strangers like it was nothing.

"Sherlock, are you alright?" John repeated, concern filling his face. "We're almost to the hotel, only about a block away from the looks of it—"

It was all wrong. All wrong. John was supposed to be in London, in Baker Street, moving on with his life, not here, not in _Bruges_, not saving Sherlock. John was not supposed to be firing bullets into people's heads, he was supposed to be patching wounds and taking temperatures and doing anything but this.

Sherlock's heart awoke from its dormancy with a roar. It felt like it had been torn out and replaced with someone else's, with a new transplant that his body was rejecting. It sped on and on, faster, quicker, unstoppable, breaking free of the reins as it thundered onward, wild in newfound freedom.

"Sherlock—"

He felt his body tip over as he passed out.

That was unexpected.

* * *

><p>When he woke, he found himself in that same modestly accommodating hotel room overlooking the Reie River that wove through Bruges like a swirling artery.<p>

The same hotel room that he had stolen the woman from earlier. No, not stolen. Borrowed. She was just collateral. He was going to give her back. But here he was, in her bed. Or John's bed. Or both. No. Don't tread there. He didn't want to consider the possibility of them sharing one.

So many questions. So many. Three years of questions, in fact.

_Did someone force you into this, was it Mycroft, no, that's stupid…even he has limits, so that means you actually work for them, what's it like being the Golem, did you kill the one that attacked us in London, what happened to you, why, why, why, did you do this because of me, how many have there been, did you ever hear anything about me, are you alright you look so lost, did you miss me (I missed you), who are you after now, who were those men, why are they here, what have you gotten yourself into you silly doctor, John—my John— what have you done without me?_

John looked up at him as he left the bedroom.

Sherlock took in the vaulted wooden ceiling, the lone spherical light dangling from it, the plain white walls and plain, modest bed covered with a comfortable looking duvet. All in all, in its quiet modernity and simple, refined taste, it was a significant leap up from where he and Mikheia were staying.

Speaking of, where was he?

Ah. Asleep on the sofa bed, curled away from the woman—Mary, was it? She was sleeping like they hadn't even kidnapped her. Must be a common occurrence—

He stopped, looking back to the boy. His arm was wrapped in bandages. Mikheia had been the one who was shot at the church, although judging by the tract of cloth it had only grazed him. He had been lucky.

"There was someone waiting outside in the front, smoking a fag." John said, answering the unspoken question. "The people they sent were sloppy. They didn't expect us to fight back. He clipped Mikheia, but Mary got him in the throat."

"Remind me to thank her."

A smile ghosted over John's face. Without another word, he began to make coffee since there wasn't tea to be had (he quietly claimed to have already looked high and low and Sherlock trusted him since if anyone was a bloodhound about tea it was John). The pot was already half-full, but he dumped it out and began again.

They sat at the little kitchenette table, Sherlock's long legs folded beneath his chair as the little cup of coffee steamed in front of him.

A gap of three years lay between them with no means of getting to the other side, no words to start stitching the wound with. So much to say and nowhere to start.

"So, how have you been?" John asked and a real smile cracked onto Sherlock's face, a rarity since he had been away, although when happiness had struck him, it usually pertained to John.

"One tends to remain in perpetual stress when they're chasing down the web of a criminal genius."

"Well, drink up then." John said, motioning to the untouched cup. "I was told by a nice employee at the front desk that the coffee was very good for stressful mornings."

Sherlock looked at him, allowing himself to notice everything he had skimmed over in the excitement and adrenaline of the morning.

_You've changed._

Sherlock could see it in John's eyes, see it in the lines around them, see it in the creases of his forehead and his posture and his slightly more reserved taste in clothing. He could see it in the fact that John failed to mention how this nice employee at the front desk had also offered him her number and he had kindly refused, which was both like and unlike John. Did this woman—this _Mary_—have something to do with it? Or was it something else?

The fact that John was the Golem did not surprise him, once he had acclimated himself to the shock of it.

John knew how to blend into a crowd, and now he was acknowledging it, putting it to good use. When put along with his military skills, he was the perfect candidate. John was always a golem in his own right, but now he was _the_ Golem. He was tofu that had found its true calling.

Sherlock wondered if John still remembered that conversation or if it was a distant memory, stored away in the cupboard and gathering dust. He was surprised John remembered anything about him at all, considering that he had the option to cleanse Sherlock out of his system like he was poison, an option that Sherlock had expected he would take.

But John was a soldier. He was brave. He let himself feel pain instead of denying it, and he was stronger for it. John was a marvel, the rarest of the rare, and Sherlock loved him for it. There was no use denying it, since that would only delay his suspicions until the moment he confirmed them, which had been a long time coming.

He loved John Watson. Loved him for his flaws, for his slow intelligence, for his boring ideas of Saturday nights, for the way he left his socks lying about _all_ the time (even after chastisement from Sherlock). Loved him for his good qualities, for his ability as a conductor, for his calmness and patience, for his boring ideas of Saturday nights, for the way he left his socks lying about, for his bravery, for his loyalty, for _everything_ that made John _John_.

"We can't stay here for long." John said, breaking a brief silence. "The agency knows where I am. I'm surprised they've let us stay this long."

Sherlock blinked.

"They're probably a bit preoccupied with cleaning up the bodies." Sherlock said calmly. Did it bother him that John had put them there? He'd have to think about it.

"I didn't want you to see me that way." John admitted quietly, running a hand through already mused hair.

"You saved my life."

"Doesn't change what happened." John said, smiling bitterly. "Doesn't change the fact that you saw me shoot four people in the head."

"It was three, actually." Sherlock corrected. "You hit the first one in his shoulder."

"Well I meant to get him in the head, then. Do good intentions count?" John asked with an unhappy grin.

"Something else is bothering you. Tell me."

John sighed.

"You can't do that anymore, Sherlock." He looked up at him with tired eyes. "You can't just force me to tell you everything. You can't just—just _come back_ like nothing's changed."

"Has it?"

John laughed rather maniacally.

"I kill people for money! Wouldn't you call that a change?"

"Perhaps. But tonight was different, wasn't it?"

"I told them—the agency—I told them I wouldn't go after innocents. Those men tonight…I hadn't been assigned to them. I had to have proof that they were guilty of whatever they had done, and I didn't even think before I shot them. I didn't know who they were—"

"They were aiming to kill. You had to adapt to a new circumstances and you did marvellously well under pressure." Sherlock leaned forward, trying to get John to look at him. "I don't blame you, John, for acting as you did. If you hadn't, we'd all be dead and they would have carted you off somewhere and done god-knows-what to you."

John looked up at him, the light catching in his face.

"You think they would've let me live?" He asked, amused.

"I would assume so. From what I gather, you're very valuable to them. And you're the Golem. As I understand it, you're the _only_ one. You're a rare commodity."

John stared at the table, his smile fading.

"Funny story, that."

"Is it one you want me to hear?"

"Maybe one day, once I've wrapped my head around it all first."

Sherlock nodded. "I understand."

"I'd explain to you what state of mind I'm in right now, but I think you've already deduced that, haven't you?" John asked, rubbing at his eyes, before looking at Sherlock and gesturing. "Well, go on then."

"The coffee was already made. You've been up a while, all night perhaps, but you've changed clothes, which implied that you felt dirty. You may have also taken a shower, but that's doubtful as I didn't hear water running and you always let your hair dry naturally and it's not wet now. You're expecting an attack, which is another reason why you haven't showered, since you thought you didn't have time. You're tired, but not just from lack of sleep. You're worried for our safety since you feel responsible for getting us into this, even though I am at as much fault, if not more than you. You feel guilty over those men's deaths, even though you shouldn't. You know your agency is dangerous, but you've been ignoring the fact until now, because they've never threatened you and now they've crossed a line. You're wondering where your loyalties lie. And, judging by your posture, you have to go to the bathroom, so by all means…" Sherlock trailed off, gesturing to the bathroom.

John stared at him, a weak smile coming onto his face before he stood.

"I'll never get tired of that."

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry for the lull, but don't worry! The next chapter is going to pick right back up!<strong>


	15. standing asleep

"Maybe that's what hell is, the entire rest of eternity spent in fucking Bruges."

Colin Farrell - _In Bruges_

* * *

><p>John stood, leaning against the window, feeling dead on his feet as he watched the morning blooming before him, pink and blue and bright as it burned away the night. He stared at the horizon, jagged with sleepy-eyed rooftops and the bad breath of smoking chimneys as Bruges began to wake itself up from thick slumber.<p>

"Right." He turned to the room, to Sherlock sitting at the kitchen table, to Mary sitting on the chair beside him putting new bandages on Mikheia, who had just woken up and with heavy eyes and flyaway hair. "We've got to get you out of here. Tonight."

"Unacceptable." Sherlock said calmly. "I'm not leaving you again. The only way you're carting me out of here is if I'm a corpse."

"See, I've already done that, Sherlock." John said quietly. "I can't do it a second time."

Sherlock paused a moment.

"Where will you go?"

"I'll stay here with Mary until things blow over. We weren't the ones they were trying to kill this morning. Is there somewhere nearby that you can go to? Somewhere safe?"

"Mycroft has a summer home in Leipzig, but he never goes to it because the housemaid always pushes strudel on him. Last time he went he had to endure months of my taunting him until he shed the weight again. That's the closest accommodation that I can think of. My and Mycroft's enmity is well known. No one will look for me there because I won't be expected to go."

"There's a train bound for Leipzig leaving at 8." Mary said, scrolling through her phone before rolling her neck.

"Mary, you can take a shower if you want to. God knows you deserve it. It's safe now."

She paused, considering, before nodding and excusing herself. Soon the sound of running water flowed through the suite.

John turned to Sherlock, his face shaded with earnest seriousness. "Sherlock, you have to promise me that you will get on that train."

"I will make sure he does, sir." Mikheia said, scratching at his arm.

"Can you travel with that injury?"

"Injury?" Mikheia said, confused, looking at his collar before looking down. "Oh, that. I have travelled with far worse ones in my life."

"Will you ever tell me how you got that?" Sherlock asked, staring at the spider scar crawling along Mikheia's collarbone.

"Perhaps one day, sir."

"You could tell John." Sherlock said, turning to his friend. "Both your wounds are similar, almost identical."

John looked at him blankly, darkly.

"I don't think he wants to Sherlock—"

"You were shot?" Mikheia asked, his brow furrowing.

"In Afghanistan, yes."

"You are a man in uniform?" Mikheia said, an excited glint in his eyes as he sat down opposite John.

"I was, but I got invalided home after the wound. You can't really shoot with a bad arm."

"What was it like? War?"

John sighed heavily, ruffling his hair before sitting down.

"I never understood how some people don't really get what war is when they experience every day. People are at war all the time. It can be over a parking space or a job or a piece of land that has no value apart from the fact that it's yours and not _theirs_." He paused. "To put it as simply as I can, war, or at least the war I was in, was brutal and dry and foreign and, on some level, I suppose I'm happy that I was shot. But I think you'll agree with me that there's nothing fun about the actual process—"

"I was not shot, sir."

"You weren't?"

"No. I—" Mikheia rubbed the back of his head nervously. "It is not something I am proud of and therefore I try not to talk about it so that I may enjoy a clean and squeaky reputation, but before I became a translator, I was involved in some not so honest business. When I was younger I worked as a drug runner, but as I got older I usually stuck to robbing tourists since it seemed to be something that I was particularly good at."

"Glad I picked you, then." Sherlock said with a smirk. Mikheia offered a grudging, half-amused smile.

"When I was 17, I tried to cheat a man that was older and wiser than I was. I was not the smart kid that I am today, see. He—he had me taken to an old cigarette factory and I was beaten very badly. I was still useful so they did not want to kill me, but the man, he got red eyed, thirsty for blood, and, to teach me a lesson, he took a red hot poker out of a fire, and—and he—" Mikheia stopped, unable to continue. He ran a hand through his hair and then held both hands out, clenched into fists, and mimicked something being shoved through his chest.

"How did you survive?" Sherlock asked, breaking the shocked silence. "For the poker to be red hot, it would have to have a sustained temperature of 500 to 1000 degrees Celsius. Any full-thickness, third degree burns would have pierced your heart and killed you."

"He did not stab me all the way through." Mikheia said quietly. "He could not get past my collarbone. He was not strong enough." He shivered at the memory, shoulders jumping as if being pushed back. His hand flew up to steady it, rubbing at the darkened skin. "Sometimes at night I can still feel it burning through my skin like I was made of margarine, melting through my chest."

"I know it feels." John said sympathetically. "It feels like it did when it happened. It feels just as real, even when you know it's not. Even when you're awake."

Mikheia nodded, unable to speak.

"The man's boss made him pay my hospital bills for what he had done, for the excesses he had gone to. He was a prideful man, and he had to pay for it."

"Was?"

Mikheia stopped, opening his mouth to speak before closing it.

"What did you do to him, Mikheia?" John asked quietly.

"I went to his home in the middle of the night and I shot him in the head." Mikheia answered calmly. "I didn't want him to suffer, but he didn't deserve to live. Not after what he did to me. Not after what he did to others around us. I shot him, but I missed and blew off one of his ears and woke him. He…was very _not_ happy after that. I shot him again, and hit him above his left eye. I had to stare at him as he died—"

Mikheia swallowed, cutting himself off, unable to continue.

"You did it for the right reasons." John said quietly but Mikheia didn't look at him. "I know that there's nothing to say to make you feel better about it, but you were right in doing what you did. It sounded like he wouldn't have learned, wouldn't have stopped what he was doing. If I had been where you are, I would have done the same."

"Wronging someone who has wronged me…it is not a very admirable action."

"But neither is sending a red-hot poker through your chest."

"I did not have to kill him. I didn't."

"Yes you did." Sherlock said, speaking finally. Mikheia and John looked to him. "And you should listen to what I am about to say because I will once say this once for however long we may know each other. You are a good man, Mikheia. You did Darwin a great service when you weeded that primeval lout from the garden."

"You should be so lucky." John said, breaking the silence. "Coming from Sherlock, that's a compliment."

* * *

><p>Sherlock always hated train-station chatter.<p>

Man calling significant other, he'll be late for dinner (read: making room for affair). Woman calling her son (read: trying to keep her mind off her other child, whom she never rings). Woman with child, going to see a dying relative. Man and woman, in love (read: sickening), first trip apart.

Man waiting (read: alone), man walking towards him (read: regretful), John handing him his bag.

"This won't be forever." John said quietly.

"I know that." Sherlock scoffed, looking anywhere but him.

"Do you?"

His eyes met Sherlock's.

"Yes."

John smiled sadly.

"I won't run from you if you won't."

Sherlock suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.

"Don't be absurd, John, I can't run from myself."

"I meant from me." John said softly.

_Oh._

Sherlock blinked.

When would he _learn_?

"I never ran _from_ you, John, I ran _for_ you, and I highly anticipate the day when you realise that."

"I have realised that, Sherlock."

"No you haven't. You're still upset with me."

John stared at him incredulously.

"Are you _really_ bringing this up now—?"

"No, John, I know that this is not the opportune time or place. I am simply stating fact. You are still angry with me for leaving you."

"But, see, you didn't just _leave_, Sherlock!"

Man, yelling (read: hurting, in the only way he knows how to hurt). Man stares at angry partner, silent (read: apologetic and quite inexperienced at it).

"This is how you wanted this parting moment to be?" Sherlock asked finally.

"You weren't giving me other options, Sherlock. You were being an instigator–"

"I was prohibiting further agitation—"

"You were being an instigator!" John said firmly and Sherlock had the good sense not to argue. "Sherlock," His voice was calmer now, more in control. "I know this isn't the most optimistic thing I've ever said, but I don't want this to be the last thing we remember of each other if—if something happens." He paused, voice growing even softer. "For three years, the last thing I had to remember you by was a vague phone call and watching you throw yourself off a building. I don't want that to happen again. It can't happen again."

"What would you like me to say?"

John shut his eyes.

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"You're asking me to put words into your mouth because you don't know what to say."

"I'm merely trying to appease you, John. Tell me if I'm not doing so—"

"Dammit, Sherlock!" John sighed, running a hand through his hair. Mary and Mikheia appeared out of the crowd, "Just…just stay out of trouble, yeah?"

"I will do my best."

"Good."

"John, if any misfortune were to happen you—"

"I'll be fine, Sherlock. I'd be more worried about yourself if I was you."

"Be that as it may," Sherlock said with a slight grin. "It is not my well-being that I care most for. And you're willingly choosing to stay in Bruges, I can't even imagine your suffering, it's like purgatory-"

"Maybe I deserve it."

Sherlock stared at him a moment, chewing his words.

"You're too good for purgatory." Sherlock said plainly. "The Devil would be so lucky to have you."

"Hello boys," Mary smiled. "Your tickets out." She said, handing one to Mikheia. "Once you arrive in Leipzig I've asked my sister to pick you up. You can trust her. Just to be sure, ask her what flavour ice cream I like best. The answer's Neapolitan."

"Unwise." Sherlock scoffed. "Many people's favourite ice cream flavours are Neapolitan. I need something more substantial."

"Well I can't give you bank codes if that's what you're asking." Mary said with a smile before pausing. "Tell her: 10-15-8-14. She'll know what it means."

Sherlock stared at her a moment and she stared back.

"Very well."

Mary held out his ticket and he took it.

"Have a safe trip, Mr. Holmes."

* * *

><p>Mary managed to find a small, quiet corner in a station café to pull the boy into while giving John and Sherlock their goodbye.<p>

"You are certain Mr. Holmes and Mr. John will not miss us?" Mikheia asked, sitting down across from her.

"I think they have more important things to discuss, love."

"What is it that you wish to discuss?"

She lit a cigarette.

"How has Sherlock been?"

Mikheia's brow knitted.

"What do you mean?"

She took a long drag before answering.

"How has he acted around you lately?"

"He has been…very quiet, most of the time, but that is his nature, yes? Other than his nature, he has been distant and…morose I think is the correct word. He—" Mikheia paused, scratching at his collar. "He often gets a certain face when he thinks of someone. I once thought it was platonic. I do not think so now. And, since I know that Mr. Holmes has only cared to have one true friend in this world, I know who that someone is."

"I think we both do." Mary said, gently exhaling smoke.

_That smell_.

"If I may query," Mikheia said, swallowing harshly. "Where did you pick up those cigarettes?"

"In the station at Novgorod." Mary answered, concern passing over her face. "Is there something wrong?"

"I—" Mikheia shut his eyes. Sickeningly sweet smoke. Heat. Sweat. Heavy cologne. "Would you mind…extinguishing it, please?"

"Of course." Mary said, stubbing it out in the ashtray.

Mikheia took a deep, shaky breath. "Thank you."

Ice water. Soft sheets. Clean linen. Almond pastry eyes.

His breath evened.

"What—" He cleared his throat. "What will happen to you?"

"Me? I expect John and I will get a slap on the wrist or a time-out. Members of the agency have done far worse things."

"Treachery is a common occurrence?"

"Not as much as kidnapping." Mary said with a grin.

"I am very truly sorry for that. It was not my intention to steal you."

"Just a mad thought in the mad mind of Sherlock Holmes." Mary sighed. "Ah, well, no harm done." She eyed his bandage. "Not to me, anyways. How is it today?"

Mikheia looked down, examining his arm. "Better…I was careful not to sleep on it."

"You think it's treachery, what we did?"

"In terms of black and white, you betrayed an ally. That is treachery. In colourful terms, this treachery also saved me my life and Mr. Holmes' as well. I owe you a rather large debt."

"Think nothing of it, love." She looked at her watch. "I think it's about time to interrupt them, don't you?"

Mikheia smiled.

"I think it is perfect."

* * *

><p><strong>Okay, I lied. This chapter is the lull. But, think of it as the calm before the storm if you'd like! Thank you again to everyone who reviewed!<strong>


	16. the paper pawn

"Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there; I did not die."

- Mary Frye

* * *

><p>Sherlock was pacing.<p>

Mycroft's home was certainly nice enough, but it was the emptiness of it that got to him. It was the lack of John, the non-Johness of it all that sent his head loose with wild ideas and theories that only suited facts to theories and not theories to facts.

"Will you please stop with that?" Mikheia asked, pausing in his mundane tuning of an old guitar he had found in the attic.

"I can't help it."

"It'll be fine, sir. Please stop it."

"He was supposed to get here two hours and thirteen minutes ago."

"Trains are late, sir. People are late. There are many things that could have waylaid him."

John, bloodied and bruised. John, screaming in pain. John, hopeless. John, destroyed.

"Many _not _violent things." Mikheia added, seeing the look on his face.

Sherlock shook his head. Speculation would only agitate him. Was this how John felt every day? Bound in worry, in flexing paralysis, that he might never see Sherlock walk through that door?

For one terrifying moment, for one second of horrifying doubt, Sherlock considered that John may be doing this to get back at him, that he was waiting outside the door until Sherlock was absolutely frantic and then he would come in and Sherlock would finally understand the numbing pain he had felt all these years. But that was not who John was. John would not let him burn if he could douse the fire. As much as John had worried over Sherlock, it was not in his nature to be intentionally cruel and spiteful.

Not that Sherlock had been entirely unfeeling towards their separation. As he said goodbye to John on that cold roof on that cold day, some hard flint had scraped inside him, caching a spark to tinder. His heart had begun to smoulder and, for over a thousand days, he burned, each day's flame licking at him a little hotter than the last. For a thousand days he poured over every detail, everything he remembered of John, dedicating each day to one special thing. The first week had consisted of the sound of his voice, the smell of his aftershave (Sherlock had considered anonymously sending some for his birthday then thought better of it), the slow clicking as he typed at a keyboard. Nothing had escaped his notice. Nothing had escaped his catalogue, filing John neatly into his own schemata, his own little box inside Sherlock's mind that the memories of him could call home. Sherlock would think of the curve of John's ear, the tilt of his smile, the sound of his laugh, every cowlick he'd ever had, every annoyed sigh, every smile, every tick, every flaw, every attribute, _everything_. And then, once he reached the end of his list, he would start over again.

But Sherlock had not taken into account that John would change. That John would not be the same man he knocked down that day, that John would rebuild himself using different materials, using the ones he could salvage from the wreck, and build a better foundation, a better machine, a better man. He had thought that John would remain a constant. He had foolishly assumed that John would just wait there for him for three years and welcome him back with open arms and a smile and a cup of tea.

He had not expected this; that John would turn himself into the Golem, that he would wring the arms of his morals until they were red and raw. But then again, he was not surprised. John was John. He had been a soldier before he met Sherlock, and so he would be after Sherlock left. The soldier mentality had been his saving grace. It had preserved him after he was shot, it had helped him cope, and so it was only rational that he turn to it in other times of mental or emotional crisis. He had just turned to it so much that he had his back to everything else.

The blankness in his eyes as he fired had been what shook Sherlock the most. It was detached from everything, centring in on one goal, one pulse in the chord, so everything else faded away like white noise. John firing those bullets, John being the cause of those men's deaths, none of that bothered him more than the thought that John had killed before in his army tour did. Those men were trying to kill him, John acted, and John saved his life. That was all he had to consider.

Something about this meeting bothered him. John was supposed to arrive two hours ago. Something had gone wrong. Something had happened. Mikheia said trains and people could be late, and that was all very well and true, but–

"John wouldn't take a train." Sherlock said, breaking a moment of a few second's silence.

Mikheia strummed on his guitar absentmindedly for a moment, thinking, before looking up.

"He would not? Why? It is cheap, fast, relatively safe—"

"Whomever he works for would know they put us on a train. They would keep tabs on it in case he tried to leave." Sherlock sat with an irritated noise. "I never should have left. I should've stayed—"

"And what good would that do, sir?" Mikheia asked. "There are no mysteries in Bruges for you to solve whose answer was not already obvious."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there was only the mystery of the Golem, but we know his identity now. That is who you were tracking, yes?"

"One of the people, yes. I thought he would have information that I could use."

"You were going to coerce him?"

"Or bribe, or threaten. I would have gotten what I wanted out of him."

"And what now?"

"Now? Now, I'll still get the information from him."

"John is not a tablecloth pawn to you. He is not someone that you would use then toss away. How are you going to get the information you require out of him?"

"Well, it will be difficult since he's still upset with me—"

"You have not seen him in three years and already you have managed to make him angry in less than 24 hours?" Mikheia asked, eyebrows raised. "That is a personal best?"

"No, my personal best is one hour and five minutes. Once after a trip to Scotland I came back, refused him lunch and then insulted his latest girlfriend."

"His latest girlfriend? You mean—"

"We are not a couple." Sherlock admitted.

"But you love him?"

"I care for him, yes."

"Alright, you love him." Mikheia stated again. "And he loves you?"

"Once his anger abates, I assume he will resume his affections, yes."

"So, what is stopping you?"

"I threw myself off a building to spare his life and subsequently destroyed him."

"Destroyed him?" Mikheia asked, confused. "Did you...land on him or something?"

"No, I destroyed him emotionally. I was—and perhaps still am—his closest friend, as he is mine. Imagine if you saw the person you were closest to in this world, the person who has seen you at your weakest as well as your best, and then they toss themselves off the roof of a very high building. How would you feel?"

"I would feel curious, sir."

"Curious?"

"Yes. I would want to know why."

_"The newspapers were right all along…tell anyone who will listen to you...that I created Moriarty for my own purposes."_

"And if you can't?"

"Then I will bury them and move on."

"What if there was no body?"

"I would still bury them. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't stop looking for one."

Mikheia…you beautiful electrical circuit.

Of course. _Of course_. This explained the biggest question of all. Sherlock was traversing the globe and so John followed, trying to find him, trying to find any kind of body that he could bury, but the grave was left open and empty, and John had nothing to fill it with. So he split from himself, sending one half to go lay down in the empty grave and wait while the other went out and filled more, filled the graves of those who deserved it—

The doorbell rang, one elongated buzz, one high pitched ring as someone held the button down as long as they could.

Sherlock leapt out of his seat, on his feet and walking towards the foyer before Mikheia could even put his guitar down.

Something slumped against the door from the other side. Something was wrong.

"John?"

He reached for the doorknob, turning it.

The door opened.

John, bloodied and bruised, as he had imagined.

_Wrong wrong wrong—_

John fell over the threshold, half-conscious and fading, his face nearly indiscernible under all the blood.

"John. John. _John_—"

Sherlock rushed around him, hoisting him up from under his arms. John screamed and Sherlock set him down. His hands were bloody. John, screaming in pain as he imagined.

"Mikheia!" Sherlock yelled, and the boy rushed in. "Help me move him. Careful of his arms. I don't know where the blood is coming from—"

"Sh—" John choked, his eyes cracked open, but barely. "Sherlock, I—"

"John, stop talking." Sherlock said tersely as he and Mikheia gently but quickly carried him to an empty bedroom down the hall.

"B—but I—"

"John—"

John let his eyes shut. John hopeless, as he had imagined.

"John, don't you dare!" Sherlock yelled, propping him on the floor against the bed, his head rolling back onto the duvet. "I'm the only one who's allowed to leave, John! Do you hear me?"

Sherlock felt his throat welling, pressing in with an unnamed heaviness.

"Mikheia, I need warm, wet towels." He turned to where the boy stood, shocked into stillness. "_DO IT NOW_!"

The boy startled and sprinted from the room. That was the first time he had seen the detective yell. He was always so composed, so in control, so sane, but now he seemed quite _in_sane. His eyes were wild, and the thought of never seeing them again drove Mikheia from the room.

Sherlock turned back to John, whose chest was rising and falling erratically, like it was being scraped against a jagged rock wall.

"_John_! Don't you dare let yourself…leave! Don't go, don't go, don't go—you _can't—_Electrical circuits don't work without conductors, you idiot—"

John said nothing. Sherlock ripped his shirt off, sending it the floor with a wet squelch, exposing a chest coated in fresh blood, sliding over wounds and congealed globs of previously shed blood that hadn't been cleaned off. Mikheia ran in, the bowl in his hands steaming in the dark room. The blood soaking into the floor shone in the golden light coming in from the hallway.

"You said Bruges was safe! You said they weren't gunning for you there! You said you'd be alright!"

Sherlock snatched the bowl from Mikheia and grabbed a handful of towels, mindless of the stinging temperature, and hurriedly attacked John's skin, slopping water on the floor. He hoped the feeling of heat on open wounds would be enough to snap him awake.

He was only half right.

"M—M—_Mary_—" John sputtered out, groaning and hissing as the blood was wiped away. "She—"

"Is she responsible?"

No answer. More watery blood dripped away from him, onto the carpet. Mycroft wouldn't be happy about the damage, but that was another matter.

"John, did she do this to you?"

He could see the wounds now, sprawling across John's skin. They were infinite.

"_John_." Sherlock grabbed his face with his free hand, squeezing until John's eyes cracked open again.

"This goodbye is…is closer than the last one, isn't it Sh—Sherlock?" John said, a slow smile on his face. "At least we're not s—seven stories apart…"

"John, shut up. You talk like that again and—John? _John_—"

John didn't respond.

John destroyed, as he had imagined.


	17. a history of inaccuracies

"The bruise turns a tall gentle boy to a terrible totem

And the kids gather round to see what's inside

I think when he's drinking he's drowning some riot

What is my friend trying to hide?"

_Some Riot_ - Elbow

* * *

><p>Mikheia was pacing.<p>

He understood what Sherlock had said earlier, about not being able to stop. It gave him something to do other than worry for the two men behind that closed door. Both of their health was at stake now. John may be the one that was injured, but Sherlock was the one that hurt with those deep wounds that medical care couldn't heal.

Mikheia had started a fire, if only out of habit. Watching the flames crackle that great, ornate marble fireplace reminded him of the days when the electricity bills couldn't be paid and his mother dragged out an old metal trashcan and set to work warming her children. He had worked harder, dishonestly and honestly, so he would never hear her scrape that tin over the floor again. Sherlock had emerged from the room an hour ago, his eyes gravid with exhaustion and heavy from something other than sleep.

"How is he doing?"

No answer, which was a most expected silence from the silent man.

Sherlock's gaze remained fixed on the fire. "Isn't it a bit too hot for that?"

His voice wasn't right. Too quiet and hoarse.

"Depends on who you ask, sir." Mikheia said, his eyes following the detective before settling on the small bottle he had clenched in his hand. "Mind telling me what you have been consuming?"

Sherlock tutted and didn't answer but threw himself into the nearest chair. Mikheia set down the guitar gently.

"You are drunk as a foul-smelling badger."

"The phrase is 'drunk as a skunk', and I'll thank you not to compare me to either mammal again."

"That will not help John, sir. You should try and talk to him."

"I don't talk to unconscious beings." Sherlock sneered, an ugly blemish on his face. "They're not sentient. It would be pointless."

"I do not think so."

"And what do I care for what you think?" Sherlock snapped.

"Did you know that you are not always right, Sherlock?" Mikheia asked and Sherlock paused. Mikheia had never called him by his name, always 'sir' or 'Mr. Holmes', always something formal, never this personal. Something had changed now.

"I have a history of inaccuracies, like any other man."

"But we both know that you are not any other man." Mikheia paused. Sherlock would never ask where he had gone wrong, but his dormant curiosity was piqued, the monster raising its head drearily. Mikheia wanted nothing more than to kick it awake, kick it out of its depressed lethargy until it was biting and snarling instead of wallowing and whining and pawing.

"You were wrong about me, at least when we first met. I was five when my father died," Mikheia began quietly. He was not cowed or embarrassed or hurt. He said it as fact, because it deserved to be acknowledged and recognised, not shoved in the dark like something to be ashamed of. "Which would make me 24, not 19. I thought if I told you a younger age you might be more inclined to take pity on me and perhaps tip me a bit more. Once I realised I was wrong we were already on the way to Bruges and I chose to stay with you for other reasons that did not involve pity or money. But that is another story, for another time."

Mikheia inhaled quietly through his nose, a steadying breath.

"Once, when I was a boy, I found myself alone walking through Ulica Zmaja od Bosne; the Alley of Snipers, as you called it. I don't know why I went there. My father had just died. Maybe I wanted to know why. Later on, I realised there was no reason. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he was shot. I was only five, and already I knew well the unfairness of the world. I learned early, and it saved me from any later disappointment-"

Suddenly, Sherlock reached a pale arm out and snatched the guitar, tossing against the wall. It crashed with a rough and unnatural twang of wood splintering off and snapping the strings off.

"Of course it's not _fair_!" Sherlock shouted. "What a stupid thing to say! Everyone knows nothing is fair! Nothing! Not tossing myself off a building, not faking my death, not John becoming whatever the hell he is, not John getting wounded, not your stupid tuning of that stupid guitars' stupid A string that makes a poor excuse for a stupid E Chord, nothing! None of it is _fair_! I never asked for any of it, but you know what? It seemed like I did! Nothing went the way I had planned because life is so _bloody unfair_ as you so simply put it!"

Mikheia said nothing, letting the raging detective rid himself of the steam that had been building up inside him for three years.

"And you know what's worse? I knew what this would do to him! I knew, and I didn't tell him. I didn't tell him, and now he might never know, he might never forgive me. I wouldn't forgive me if I were him, but he's John-he's _John_-he's everything, he's the reason I left and the reason I would come back, and he'll never forgive me for what I did...never..."

Sherlock trailed off, the pressure gauges lowering back down.

When Mikheia broke the silence, his voice was gentle, quiet. "We are in the same barge, you and I."

"The phrase is we are in the same _boat_." Sherlock said calmly, all his anger having been channelled through his destruction of the instrument. Mikheia continued.

"I know that you do not think much good of anything. I know that many things disappoint you and so you have made yourself disappointed by everything. But while I was in the Alley, I came across a dog. It had been shot in the leg, and it was bleeding out. I tried to help it, and it bit at me. It didn't know any better than to protect itself the only way it could. I took off one of my socks, the only pair of socks that I had in the whole world, and I wrapped it around the wound. I took the dog home and gave it to a neighbor and even though it is quite old, it is still alive and well today. I think I was spared that day in the Alley, I think that someone saw my good deed and saved me my life. Or maybe it was because I was a child, although you reminded me once that they had a habit of not even sparing children. I don't know what it was, but I am grateful that they let a hurt boy take a hurt dog home."

Mikheia stood, taking his empty tea cup and prying the bottle from Sherlock's hand. The detective didn't stop him, but let it be taken from his palm.

"I saved him his life even if he did not want me to, and I will do the same for you, no matter how much you bite. Talk to him. He will hear you."

That had been an hour ago, one whole hour since Sherlock had disappeared back into that quiet, dark room. Mikheia had made sure there were no bottles with him.

Mikheia considered trying to fix the guitar, but it would be quite pointless. It was beyond repair. He had nothing to do but wait. Wait and pace. He could have a look at the other Mr. Holmes' library. That might be interesting...

Mikheia took one last look at the closed door then set off into unknown territory.

* * *

><p>Behind the door was a very silent, very still, very agitated Sherlock.<p>

He had perched himself on a chair beside the bed, keeping a vigilant eye over John like a grotesque peering down from Notre Dame. He had been restless at first, before his body had processed the alcohol, but now he felt relatively calmer, his furious screaming and subsequent crash taking his agitation from him. John wouldn't have approved of the way that he had yelled at Mikheia. Mikheia, who had done nothing to provoke him. Mikheia, who was so wise for being 24 and pretending to be 19. Mikheia, who had taken his tantrum just as calmly as John would have.

Sherlock let his eyes open slowly, hoping for a change and finding none.

John's face was pale and tired. A sheen of cold sweat had broken out over his skin sometime in the night, plastering his hair to his forehead and covering his still face.

Sherlock had categorically detailed every cut, every scrape, every bruise, every wound, and memorised it, noted the way that each split John's skin like a small, dry riverbed. He had kept his mind occupied with figuring out what exactly caused the wounds. He would rather focus on the actual torture than the victim. He couldn't go there yet. He had to prepare. If he went in now, he may as well sign the death sentence on logic, on finding who did this to John, and act in heated, messy revenge instead of the cool, utterly annihilating retaliation this deserved.

Flagellation was most likely with the way the wounds were split and how they tapered off at the ends. But some cuts were so small, not caused by a whip but something more like a knife. Some others were too wide for either. It was as if the torturer used every weapon in their arsenal like trying samples of ice cream, seeing which was sweetest, which would make John scream most—

No. Don't go there. Not yet.

John groaned softly and shifted, but even unconscious he registered pain and soon stopped.

They would be here for quite some time, until John recovered. _If_ he recovered—

_Don't _go there yet.

Medical help was unwise. If this agency could find Sherlock in Bruges, they could most certainly find John in Leipzig. And even if it hadn't been the agency to do this to him, whoever it was had been left unsatisfied and bloodthirsty, and they would be on the prowl. Some of the cuts suggested that they had meant to kill John at the end. The thought made something inside Sherlock knot itself and turn cold. He had watched John as the train left Bruges, but he had been reassured that they would meet later, when John was conscious and healthy and whole, not when John collapsed at his brother's doorstep, every inch of him slick with blood.

"John…listen to me."

John didn't move.

"Listen—" He cleared his throat, but his voice sounded no less hoarse. "Listen to me, John. You have to—you have to—"

Sherlock trails off, finding himself unable to keep talking. It's a cocktail of shame and embarrassment and grief and guilt, all mixing together into a highly-flammable combustion that rises up to the heat of his burning heart. It's going to explode soon, and he doesn't know what he'll do, who he may hurt, whose death he might be responsible for.

"John." He nudges his best friend, the man he wants to protect; the man he loves.

The man he loves and wants to protect does not respond.

"John. Just stop it. Stop this. You're being childish. I know you're faking it just so I know what it feels like to have everything taken from you. I know you're faking it, you idiot…you'll be happy to know that you proved your point…John, do you hear me? You've proved your point. You've won. You can wake up now. You can stop this."

John remains unresponsive save for a quiet exhale of breath.

Sherlock leans back in his chair, feeling his throat swell shut as knots of cold iron churn in his stomach like ice.

There are no tears.

It's a quiet breaking, a quiet crack widening on an atom, splitting it further.

It will break apart soon if John can't mend it. He can feel it, he felt it when he was drunk and yelling because he hadn't known what else to do to stop it.

"John…"

* * *

><p>"Sh—Sher…lock."<p>

He had only _heard_ John's broken voice once, that last time, when their positions were switched and his eyes had been shut. Now they were open and he could finally pair that voice to a face, but he didn't want to.

"John." He leans forward, meeting his friend's half-opened eyes. They're a dull blue, faded from sleep and a consistence haze of pain, like fog.

"Are you…" John swallows, his voice as cracked and parched as his torn skin. "Are you alright?"

One mad laugh escaped Sherlock.

"I'm not the one who just spat Death in the face, John."

"No…I know…"

"How are you feeling?"

"Wonderful." John croaked. "Just bloody fantastic."

"You must be hungry. Even if you're not, I know Mycroft has tea here—"

He was cut off by John's weak chuckle.

"I almost forgot what that looked like."

"Here, I'll just go and—"

"No!" Jon shouted suddenly and Sherlock paused. "No, just…stay. Please." God, the way John looked up at him might make a religious man out of him yet. "I can't —if…you can't go again."

Sherlock sat back down.

The tea could wait. Everything could wait.

* * *

><p><strong>102 REVIEWS. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? HAS SOMEONE INITIATED A MASSIVE TROLLING OPERATION? BECAUSE IT'S WORKING.<strong>

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	18. coldness

"OTHERS because you did not keep

That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;

Yet always when I look death in the face,

When I clamber to the heights of sleep,

Or when I grow excited with wine,

Suddenly I meet your face."

- W.B. Yeats, _The Deep-Sworn Vow_

* * *

><p>Mikheia stared at the blood stains on the empty bed. It made him think of the time a bird flew into his window and left its vague greasy imprint on the glass before plummeting to its death. His sister had gone out to find it and bury it because she loved to do silly things like that, only to find the bird being chewed apart by the dog he had saved on the Sniper's Alley.<p>

"It's not going to clean itself." Sherlock said, peering at the stains like they had personally insulted him.

"I know."

Yet neither of them moved, struck into stillness by the sprawling red, like veins of rust on a dry riverbed.

The toilet flushed from behind them and it snapped them out of their reverie. Sherlock moved faster than Mikheia had ever seen him, even on then night John had collapsed into a bloody mess in the foyer (was that really only yesterday?), snatching up all four corners of the sheets and balling them up in arms. No sooner had he gathered them up then the door to the bathroom creaked weakly open and John staggered out, stiff with soreness and sleep and pain, dressed in crisp trousers that obviously were not his. This was due in part to Mikheia and Sherlock's shameless dig through Mycroft's clothes while John had been unconscious and their acquiring of some acceptable trousers and a few shirts. John had been too uncomfortable putting on a shirt with his fresh wounds, but he had happily accepted the trousers, muttering something about how at least they weren't women's slacks.

"Come on," Mikheia said, taking his arm as gently as he could. "I'll make you something to eat."

John mumbled a slurred response but allowed himself to be led away. Sherlock tried not to glance at the many arching cuts on John's pale back; they would need to be bandaged again soon. He turned from the retreating figures, letting the sheets unfold out of his arms in a cascade of red-stained cloth. The sight of blood was only obscured from where his white fingers gripped the linen.

He wanted to protect John, to make sure no one would ever hurt him again, to make sure that his back was never split open and he never had to suffer at the hands of another. But, as much as he hated to admit it, he had no means to, at least not at present. After he had stripped off John's bloody clothes he had searched for his gun, but it was missing. Mikheia still had his, but there was little ammunition and none could be found here unless they left the house. If someone were to attack them in the night, all Sherlock had was his wits, close combat skills, and whatever was close to him that he could throw.

He needed to call Mycroft.

On John's behalf, of course.

* * *

><p>Sherlock had been quiet after he had woken up, barely talking, barely <em>moving<em>, which was both normal and unusual. He looked like a house of cards about to fold in on itself, trembling and fragile. He was staring at John but his mind was miles away. He could have been staring at a pile of stones for all he knew.

John had watched him for a while, unable to talk, unable to think, unable to feel anything but the tear of his shirt as it was sliced open, the stinging as his back was slashed, the careful precision of the knife as it drew across his skin where he couldn't see, like it was being handled by a surgeon. He hadn't felt anything other than the desire to get to Leipzig. He had made a promise, he had _promised _Sherlock that he would come back, and he would, even if it killed him. And it almost had. He couldn't even begin to think of what Sherlock must have gone through, seeing him collapse onto the door like that. He hadn't wanted to go that quickly, he at least wanted to tell him what happened, to tell him where he was hurt before he lost consciousness, but John Watson wanted a lot of things that never happened as he wanted them to.

As he woke and stared at Sherlock, who stared right back at him, he saw something in his eyes, something painful and cold and heavy, like iron stuck in deep water where no light shone through.

"Why is my hair wet?' He had managed to croak out and Sherlock blinked, focusing again on John. The spell was broken, the dream was over.

"You're smarter than most, John. Why do you think?" Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "We had to get the blood off you. I treated you respectfully, if that's what you're worried about. No one laughed at you. I wasn't in a particularly_ jovial_ mood anyways."

His tone was biting, but not towards John. John knew he was edging on the sharp precipice of dangerous thoughts. He knew where that tone led; what the consequences where.

"Don't…don't go after them."

"Who is 'them'?" Sherlock had asked quietly, but his voice trembled like hollow metal that had been struck.

John closed his eyes, feeling the fresh hot blood trickle down his back, feeling the cold sweat break out, feeling his eyes clenching shut underneath the blindfold, feeling the abject terror that he might never see Sherlock, even though he had just found him again. Despite the numbing pain that ate away at him, that tore his skin to raw pulp, he'd felt a sense of happiness. Happiness, because at least Sherlock and Mikheia had made it to Leipzig. At least they were safe, where these fuckers couldn't get to them. If John were to die, let it be so Sherlock could live.

If he were honest with himself, he had been ready to die that night, ready to bleed out onto the floor and give his life for his best friend and a boy he had only just begun to know.

"I don't…I don't know." John swallowed, his throat dry after the heat of a breaking fever. "I'm sorry, Sherlock, I'm sorry—"

"_Don't_!" Sherlock stood, a snarl on his face. "Don't you dare apologise to me, John!"

John shut his eyes, closing out the angry, trembling Sherlock, before opening them again to a Sherlock with his back to him, running a hand through his hair.

"Sherlock."

He turned, his face blank but heavy with something he didn't want John to see.

"I have to pee, so…help me up, will you?"

* * *

><p>John sat numbly at the kitchen table, his back bowed and aching. He could still feel the slice of the whip as it cut into his skin, could still smell the cigarette smoke that hung about the room like cheap and heavy cologne, could still hear the laughter and taunts as each took his turn sending the air snapping. His teeth ground together. A shudder cracked through him, sending a fresh pain reverberating through him, through all the gulfs and canyons of cuts and wounds on him. He didn't want to look down, didn't want to see the damage. Not yet.<p>

Mikheia walked over to him, wearing a floral apron, and tilted his tray down, sending a cascade of good-smelling food onto his plate.

"I made cookies." He said happily, tossing the tray into the sink and taking off the apron. "But you call them biscuits, yes? You British are very odd; everything is mixed up when I am with you. I found the ingredients in the oddest place, in the back of the pantry, like someone was trying to hide them—"

"Mycroft has a weakness for sweets." Sherlock said, swooping into the room and sitting opposite of John. "You dangle a piece of cake in front of him and he'll run a wheel enough to power all of London for weeks."

John felt a small smile come onto his face. Mikheia looked at him, his head cocked to the side.

"Why are you not eating? Many people would be happy to have an excuse to eat them." Mikheia took one and bit into it. "See? I am helping you by showing you how delicious and not poisoned they are."

"John, you've got to eat something." Sherlock said.

"Hark who's talking." He said dully.

"Yes, our roles seemed to have reversed, very funny, ha ha, now let's move on." Sherlock held out a biscuit. "Eat it."

"I just…you really think sweets are the way to go after I nearly bled out last night?"

"Replenish your blood sugars."

"That's the excuse diabetics and the Red Cross use, Sherlock. Don't try it on me."

"John, for God's sake, just eat the damn biscuit."

John sighed and took it, swallowing the whole thing down in one bite.

"Well?"

"It was nice. It was an acceptable biscuit."

Mikheia stood and walked over to the trash can before spitting out a mouthful of biscuit, a smile on his face.

"You were right, sir." He said, taking the plate of biscuits and putting them on the counter.

John blanched. "Right about what?" He turned to Sherlock, who had a slightly apologetic look on his face. "Sherlock, what the hell did you do now?"

"Nothing, John."

"I'm serious."

"I may have had Mikheia put a crushed morphine tablet into the biscuit you just ate."

"Sherlock!" John cried, standing in shock despite the protest of every inch of his skin.

"What? What is so bad about that, John? You're in pain, it's only going to help you—"

"I know you did it with the best intentions, but I—whoa—Christ—" John suddenly swayed back in the chair, his body relaxing as the rigidity bled out of him. It felt like his blood had turned to air and he was rising out of his seat, yet he knew gravity was still working as it always had. He felt himself falling, but then Sherlock was there, catching him, and somehow he and Mikheia managed to get him back into that fucking spare bedroom that he had been burning in all night and all day.

The sheets were changed. John wondered which of them did it.

"I need to bandage your wounds, John." Sherlock said, moving around the room as Mikheia propped John against the headboard. "We can't risk an infection that would send you to the hospital. Anyone could find you there."

"Mrmph." John replied, having fallen forwards over onto the bed, his voice muffled by the mattress before he managed to turn his head.

Mikheia, laughing, helped him sit up as he turned him towards the wall. "Sorry! Just sit up and hold the headboard if you can." John sighed, but obliged, knowing it was admittedly the most comfortable position he could afford right now.

"I know that I'd be vulnerable and I know you haven't seen me in a while Sherlock, but I'm still a doctor. I think I'd know what's best in this situation. And you could have told me what you were planning."

"I could have." Sherlock admitted. "But this way was more enjoyable."

"You love an elaborate plan, don't you?" John groaned before jumping at the achingly cold substance being spread over his back.

"It's an antibiotic cream." Sherlock explained without having to ask. "Mycroft may as well have prepared for the apocalypse with the way he's stocked this house. Mikheia, can you get a few extra boxes of gauze? It's down in the basement on the third shelf."

John heard footsteps as Mikheia left. There was a tear as Sherlock opened the first package of bandages and John felt the rough, warm cloth drape over his back.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock."

No answer, just heaviness.

"Shut up, John." He said finally, continuing to wrap the dry gauze around. "You are not at fault."

"I'm still sorry. I promised you I'd get back alive."

"And so you did."

John cringed at the coldness of both cream and voice.

"Don't you dare, Sherlock."

"Don't what?"

"Don't shut me out. I know last night must have been hard for you—"

"On the contrary, it was this morning that was difficult—"

"Don't you feel _anything_?" John snapped. "Anything? Anything at all?" He paused, thinking on his next words. "For all I know, those three years may have been a breeze for you. You haven't told me anything, nothing about what happened to you or what you've been doing. All you've done is ask about me, which is all well and good, but you have said nothing, not a _thing_, about you. Hell, if I hadn't met Mikheia in the Kremlin I'd have no sodding clue who he is! You're shutting me out, Sherlock, and I—I really, _really_, don't want you to."

Sherlock looked at him, lips pursed like he had tasted something sour, like he was chewing on his words, before he spoke.

"Do you want to know why you're wrong?"

"No," John sighed, "but you're going to tell me anyways."

"Those three years were not a_ breeze_ for me. In fact they were the opposite of a _breeze_. They were windless, a vacuum of darkness and heat and misery. The only reason that I've asked about you so much is because I spent every single day, all one thousand two-hundred and a half of them, wondering. Wondering about you, thinking about you, worrying about you. I had thoroughly convinced myself that you were in Baker Street, moving on with your life. I am not shutting you out, in fact, it's the contrary. I am letting you back in. Forgive me if I am being callous about it, but it's a new experience for me. Once people are out, they're out. You're the first. You're the first in this osmotic practise."

Sherlock paused. He wanted to say something, but didn't know how to go about it.

"I know how I feel about leaving you, I know how I feel about being away from you, and I know how I feel about coming back to you, as unexpectedly welcome as it was. I also know that you are still upset with me for what I did, but I think this rather makes us even. We both have seen each other dead in another sense than the cessation of bodily function."

Sherlock sat beside him, barely moving the bed.

"Ours is a simple solution. We forgive each other for wrongdoing and we move on. I want that. I want it very much. But—but I don't know how to start. I want to know what you want me to _say_, John. Tell me what to say that will help you begin to forgive me."

John watched at him for a moment, eyes passing over the detective, over his dishevelled clothing that he hadn't slept in but still wore from yesterday, then back to his face.

"Tell me you're really here."

"I'm really here."

"Tell me I'm not dreaming."

"You are not dreaming."

"Tell me you won't leave me again, at least without telling me."

"I will never leave you again. I'll never premeditate it if I do."

John stared at him a moment, then threw his arms around that scrawny git of a detective. Despite the pain that bit at every inch of him and despite his muscles screaming in protest, John clutched Sherlock tightly to him, feeling tears prick at his eyes.

"I missed you, you idiot."

He felt Sherlock smile against his ear before his long arms wrapped around him and his head settled in the curve of his neck.

"I missed you too, John."


	19. a conversation

"all our lonely kicks are getting harder to find

we'll play nuns versus priests until somebody cries

all our lonely kicks that make us saintly and thin

we'll play nuns versus priests until somebody wins"

'Little Faith' - The National

* * *

><p>It was the witching hour, a time most active in darkness where the only light shone from the stars above.<p>

Mikheia snored softly on the couch in the library, a book draped over his chest and his hand resting on a pile rising up from the floor.

Down the hall, light shone through a cracked door. John sat on the bed, his back turned, and Sherlock stood behind him, unravelling more gauze among the scattered medical supplies for the second time that day, technically the first of the new day considering the lateness of the hour.

"Why did you do it?" Sherlock asked, pressing more gauze to one of John's wounds. They seemed endless, like staring up into a starry night, blood smeared across the heavens. "Let them recruit you?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do. You do many things for many reasons; you are not a man who does anything because he simply doesn't know better. Why?"

John inhaled through his nose sharply, steadying himself.

"I—Watching you fall, hearing you hit the ground as I lay on the street with a mouthful of pavement, it—it _destroyed_ me, Sherlock. I didn't know what else to do. I started looking for things that made me feel in control again, and the agency was the best option."

Sherlock's hands hesitated.

"I'm sorry, John." He said quietly.

"I know." John sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I know you are. But that doesn't change the fact that you let me watch you fall, you let me believe you were dead. Friends don't do that to each other."

"Could you blame me for not telling you? It's not like I've had friends who have cared about my well-being."

"But _I_ did, Sherlock. I still do. You may not have much common sense with emotions, but I know that you knew what you were doing to me. And you went full steam ahead anyways and bollocks to the consequences."

"What do you want me to say to you?"

"It doesn't work like that, Sherlock. I can't just tell you what to say."

"You did yesterday."

"That was different, and, in my defence, you _did_ drug me. I can't tell you what you should be feeling when you betray your best friend."

"I know what I feel, John. I feel guilty, I feel miserable, I've _been_ miserable ever since I left. I've been responsible for all your wounds—for all of _this_—because I didn't tell you what I was doing. But you have to know that I did it for you and Molly and Mrs. Hudson and even_ Lestrade_ of all people if you can believe that. Moriarty had you all pinned under his thumb, he had people out there ready to kill you, and so I did what I could to ensure that didn't happen. He killed himself to make sure I had no other alternative but to jump. And I did, for you and for everyone."

Sherlock paused, letting his fingers linger over a newly placed bandage.

"I knew what I would be doing to you. I knew, and I'm sorry. You have to believe me, John. I've been—I've been quite inhuman since I left. I did things I'm not proud of, I hurt people because I couldn't control myself, I even went on a hunger strike because I thought some poor old woman in Hong Kong was trying to poison me. Turns out she just thought I liked tofu, and she was correct. I wish she had just _told_ me instead, though. At least I could have enjoyed it…"

"I—you went to Hong Kong?"

"Yes, and I'd rather not go back. I burned some bridges there that can't be rebuilt."

John laughed, quite maniacally.

"Was the hunger strike the worst of it, then? Went without dinner some nights like a badly behaving kid in time-out?" He asked with a bitterness he didn't mean in his voice. "I'd say I don't think you know what I went through, Sherlock, but I think you do."

Sherlock nodded.

"You joined an international agency that sends assassins to dispatch and scourge unfavourable people from the world. That tells me enough."

"You asked me why I did it. I still can't tell you why, mainly since I don't really know myself." John paused, wincing as an old bandage was peeled off. "I was alone, I needed the money to stay on Baker Street and the clinic just wasn't enough since I had to pay the whole rent. I…I was hired because of an accident—only it wasn't really an accident—and they sent me through training." Sherlock began to wrap gauze around John's arm and he lifted it up so he could wind it all the way around. "It was a lot like the army actually. I think they were looking for people like me; someone maladjusted and lonely with a history of military experience—"

"Do you love her?"

"What? Who?"

"Mary." Sherlock said quietly as he continued wrapping the gauze. "Do you love her? It would be perfectly understandable, considering she was there for you, supported you through an emotional crisis. It isn't unexpected that you would have a romantic inclination towards her—" His eyes turned up to John's face, unreadable and blank. Red flag. He backtracked. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. If you do, I will try my best to not get in the way. You won't even notice me."

"I doubt you can do that, Sherlock."

"You haven't seen my camouflage skills, have you?" Sherlock replied, taping the gauze around John's arm. "I've gotten quite good over the years. They're more than proficient—"

"No, I doubt you can stay out of the way."

"Why is that?"

"Because I love you." He said it so simply, so matter-of-factly, as if it was common knowledge. "And not in the way that I love Mary. Not in the way that I love anyone else."

Sherlock's heart lurched, like something heavy had knocked into it and sent it off-course for a moment.

"John—"

"Just thought you should know." He shrugged then winced at the ensuing pain. "Certainly been keeping it to myself long enough."

What to do what to do what to do—what should he say? John, I love you as well. John, I think of you every day, whether you're with me or not. John, you're better than a caffeinated cigarette, if humanity was finally smart enough to bring that into existence…

"Even if you don't love her like that, she's certainly got a fondness for you."

Good going, genius.

John hesitated before he answered. The lack of Sherlock's acknowledgment of his feelings probably stung more than a little bit.

"What makes you say that?"

"Other than her copious attempts at eye-fucking you?" Sherlock asked and John choked a laugh of surprise down at hearing him curse. "10-15-8-14. Do you remember?"

"That was the code she gave you at the station, right?"

"Yes. It was a coded sequence; the numbers corresponded to letters in the alphabet. Easy enough to figure out. To save you the mental strain, it spells—"

"J-O-H-N." John finished, spelling out each letter.

Sherlock stopped wrapping the gauze around his torso and leaned back on his heels, looking up at John.

"You knew?"

"Of course I knew. I told her to use it." John said with an amused smile. "Mary is not a threat to _you_ Sherlock, so stop treating her like one. She's already saved your life twice, which is more than I can say for what she did in Bruges."

"Twice?" Sherlock made a sound of annoyance before continuing to wrap the bandages around John's middle once more. "I was only aware of one instance."

"She saved me that night in the Kremlin." John said quietly, glad that Sherlock did not ask about Bruges. "I know you don't set much stock in expressing your feelings, but I'd like to believe that I'm rather important to you, as you are to me. And so if she saved my life, she saved yours as well, in a sense."

"I was never in danger in the Kremlin, John."

"But I was." John sucked in a breath as Sherlock's hand grazed one of the deeper wounds, another mark of the whip that had to be left to the open air. "You can ask me about that. I can tell you've been wanting to."

"I did not think it was best to ask a trauma victim about past abuse so soon after a reoccurrence." Sherlock answered. "But since I have your permission, yes, I would like to hear your recollection."

"I don't remember much of what happened. I know my contact in Novgorod was a snitch and I know I was drugged and taken into the Kremlin. I kind of drifted in and out after that, but I remember hearing your name and—it sounds so odd now—but I remember the taste of chewing gum and the smell of gunpowder."

"Gunpowder? I know the military is underfunded, John, but I hardly think you had to resort to older weapons in Afghanistan to know what that smells like—"

"When I was a kid my grandfather showed me how to load an antique gun, and I remember the smell of the powder he used. I smelled it in the Kremlin. It was unmistakably the same thing. Anyways," John sniffed, as if trying to rid himself of the smell, but all he could smell now was the scent of antiseptic. "After I came to and managed to untie myself I had this rush, it was like my blood was sunlight or something; it—it kind of felt like I was _happy_." An empty smile came on his face. "I'd kind of forgotten what that felt like."

"When was the last time you were happy, John?" Sherlock asked, but his tone was clinical, like a doctor was telling him to look into the light to test his vision.

"I don't remember." He answered quietly. "Sometimes Mary will make me laugh or Mrs. Hudson or Lestrade will stop by for a chat or Harry would call, but…but it wasn't happiness, you know? It was hollow, like a bucket full of air. It was like after I was shot, when I came back and everything tasted the same, except I wasn't alone after St. Bart's. I just felt like I was."

"If it alleviates your suffering, you may care to know that I fared little better." Sherlock sniffed. "I lived my life before you and I lived it with you and I lived it after you, and only one of those periods was of any value to me."

He did not miss the marginal widening of John's eyes as he tore off another strip of medical tape. He should savour the feeling since it was as close as he could come to admitting his own feelings without blurting them out and sounding like a love-struck, starry eyed schoolgirl.

Sherlock stopped his motions, tucking one end of the unfinished dressing in so it wouldn't fall out while he thought.

"You said you tasted chewing gum?" He asked, standing up and beginning to pace.

"In the Kremlin?" John asked, trying to recollect the elements of their cooling conversation. "Yeah. It was mint flavoured, just like the kind I normally use." His brow furrowed. "Why?"

"Antique gunpowder, if the scent was unmistakably the kind your grandfather used, would have contained cordite. Cordite is a smokeless propellant used in World War I and II era weapons, although it has been since discontinued due to better technological advances. If it is ingested, it gives off a slight exhilaration, like you were halfway to intoxication. If taken in large quantities it produces a state of ecstasy and makes the victim see visions before instilling a raging fever, which soldiers used to get sick leave." Sherlock paused, his feet rooting in place. "Did you see anything odd?"

"Odd?" John frowned. "I don't think so—"

The shadow of the Golem—his own shadow reflected onto the wall—stretching itself before him.

"I saw the Golem's shadow." He said quietly, staring at the wall. "But I didn't realise it was just my own…I thought he was there, with me." He looked up at Sherlock, who was staring at him with a quiet attentiveness. "I saw it before, too, before I even flew to Russia. I saw it in an alleyway after…after…"

_Think_! What had happened that night? What did he remember?

John shut his eyes.

* * *

><p>He had been assigned a businessman. Not something entirely uncommon, surely, but it was unexpected all the same. He'd never understand the jealous rivalries that boiled under the skin of the economical world.<p>

He sighed as he chewed his gum, the taste already losing its flavour and reminding him that he was essentially chewing a piece of rubber. He had been perched on the balcony of the house for a good half hour already. The target was late.

A light turned on above his head. John looked straight up, past the rim of his cap, the light sloshing over his face in the dark. He felt the muscles in his neck strain and move as he popped a bubble.

Time to move.

John quietly unattached himself from mind and ledge and opened the window.

The man had been foolish to assume that he was safe in his house. He'd chosen perhaps the worst place to barricade himself, in a room where one wall was completely lined with ceiling-to-floor length windows. That poor, stupid bastard. He'd never learn. They all never learned.

"You would have been safer in the bathroom." John said quietly, enjoying watching the man startle as he realised just how trapped he was. "There's only one way in that you have to focus on."

The man turned, coming face to face with him.

"You're so pale—" He was cut short as a quiet bullet entered his frontal lobe and exited out of the back of his brain. He collapsed to the floor, bleeding from that small hole planted so much like a third eye in the middle of his forehead.

"Sorry I disappointed you." John answered coldly. "But you are rather late. I'm afraid you couldn't get my usual treatment."

_Usual_ being the operative word. John's usual treatment involved rather more distance—say from the rooftop opposite—and rather less breaking-and-entering. Why did the man say he was so pale? Why did that surprise him? Such an odd choice of last words…

Gloved hands softly pulled the cell phone from the dead man's hand, clutched so tightly around it. John thought a moment before clicking _unlock_. His wife's birthday: 10-15. Their anniversary: 8-14. Why did he even bother with such an obvious passcode?

"Veliky Novgorod." John muttered. He looked at the corpse. "At least you're useful."

His phone rang three times.

* * *

><p>John opened his eyes.<p>

"I was assigned a businessman and then an investor that night," John began softly, "and it went well enough, even though the investor never showed up. The first one was clean. He didn't fight me like some others did. The agency had told me to get his phone if I could. His passcode was easy to get, but the agency wanted his travel plans. He was going to Novgorod." John looked up at Sherlock, confusion on his face. "Why was he going to Novgorod?"

"Business?" Sherlock guessed blandly, sealing the gauze wrapped around John's hand with tape.

"And…why would they send me the next day? What was so important about bloody _Novgorod_?" John ruffled his hair in agitation. "Anyways, when I left the investor's house after he didn't show, I saw the shadow. I—" He smiled briefly. "I didn't tell Mary this, but I thought it was you at first. I followed, but I lost it. God, that just sounds insane, doesn't it? Trying to run after my own shadow…"

Sherlock stared down at him a moment.

"Tell me John," He asked quietly. "Have you been eating anything that the agency has directly given you?"

"No," John answered quickly. "I mean, there wasn't really any opportunity they could've offered it to me other than—" John's eyes widened. "Oh Christ…" He trailed off, the horrified look on his face sending a searing burn through Sherlock's blood.

"What? What did you eat?"

John buried his head in his bandaged hands, exhaling heavily. "Gum. I've been chewing the gum they gave me."

"Gum? They gave you _gum_? What kind of complimentary do they think that is? In fact I—oh." Sherlock's face settled into realisation. "_Oh_."

The drug was in the gum—_no _—it _was_ the gum, only with a vague synthetic mint flavouring, which would make perfect sense since cordite is three-fifths nitroglycerin so it would taste sweet naturally…

"_God_ I've been stupid haven't I, John? John?" He turned and frowned.

"They've been drugging me, Sherlock." John said hoarsely, looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "They've been drugging me, and I've been killing people for them." A sour laugh escaped him. "I didn't even think twice about it! Anyone else would have realised what was going on, _anyone_ else would've realised that they shouldn't trust an agency that pays in blood…" John let his head fall back into waiting hands. "I must be the most worthless person on the face of the whole bloody planet right about now—"

"Don't you ever, _ever_ call yourself worthless, John." Sherlock said, kneeling in front of him and taking his hands away from his face. "You are many things, but worthless? You'll never be worthless. Never. Do you understand? You mean so much to—so much to me. You will never be worthless in my eyes, not even if you shot me in both kneecaps and insulted my mother."

"Well, there have been many instances where I almost did both of those things." John smiled weakly before it faded back. "Do you know how close I was to shooting you that day at the church in Bruges because the agency told me to? And not even in your kneecaps. I knew where that bullet would go."

"But you _didn't_, John. You didn't, because you're wonderful and brilliant and you realised who you were aiming at before you shot." Sherlock paused, waiting for his mouth to catch up to his thoughts. "Mikheia saw you that day in the Kremlin. I know he did, you know he did, and he knows he did. I didn't want to believe it was you. I wanted to believe that you were sitting in Baker Street and moving on without me. I wanted so _badly_ for you to forget me, John, if it meant you would be happy. But you didn't. And you also didn't shoot Mikheia after he helped you. That tells me all I need to know concerning your worth. You are everything, John. Everything. Now that you're here, now that you're right in front of me, I don't ever want to see you away ever again."

"That's stupid." John said with a slight smile.

"Pardon?"

"I said that's stupid. I can't _always_ be with you. Who will do the shopping since you hate the grocery store? Who will work when we don't have a case?" John's smile faded and he put a hand over Sherlock's. "I may be _away _sometimes. But I'll never leave you."

"You say that like we can go back to Baker Street like nothing has happened."

John looked at him with bright eyes and a sad smile. "Well, can't we?" John stopped a moment, thinking of his next words. "I don't want to drag you down, Sherlock. If—if you think your work is unfinished, if there's more of Moriarty that you have to get rid of and you have to leave, I want to go with you."

"I think you know very well of my intention to stay with you, John." Sherlock paused. "But you are why I left. I left so you might live unencumbered and safe. I can't be responsible for any more wounds."

"I'm a big boy, Sherlock." John said with a smile. "And I've got a medical degree, so it's not like I can't handle whatever wounds I get."

"Yes, because so far all this—" He waved a hand, indicating the bandages covering John, more visible than his own skin. "Has been solely your doing."

"Alright, so I may need help sometimes if I can't reach."

"I'm afraid Baker Street might have to wait for now."

"We can live together without it. Baker Street is just an address we use for mail."

"John, what you said earlier—you know—you know I—"

"Yeah, I know."

"How?"

"It was only a matter of time. Even the slowest of us catch up sometimes on the things that matter." He said, smiling up at him.

"It—I feel like when I saw the Hound, John, that night in Baskerville."

John smiled at the ingenuous statement. Sherlock wasn't just new to love for a man like John was, he was new to love and all its sweet tangles and snares and beautifully painful trappings. His heart was still fresh from the sting as it was pierced, and the tissue hadn't healed over yet.

"I know. I used to feel like that too."

"What did you do?"

"I overlooked it, usually. It hurt, and no one wants to hurt if they can help it, so I ignored it."

"Usually? How often has this happened to you?"

"Just once."

"Once?" Sherlock felt a smile crawl on his face, unwarranted but welcomed. "And does that have an expiration date?"

"I expect not. It's survived long enough, even when I starved it. Even when it hibernated because there was nothing else for it to do but to be ignored and wait in the darkness."

"What are we going to do about it?"

"Well, we can do nothing, leave it unacknowledged and keep the status quo…we can pretend we don't know—" He looked up at Sherlock and thought better, understanding that the detective disliked that idea as much as he did. "Or, you can let me be the experienced know-it-all, and you can be the confused and constantly awed sidekick."

"You've never been a sidekick, John." Sherlock said, his silvered eyes meeting John's. "You've been a friend, _my_ friend. You've never been anything but an equal in your own right."

"Glad to hear it." John smiled, but there was something inside it, something bright and alive that made Sherlock's heart pound in a way he hadn't often felt. As John leaned forward his heart grew louder, more frantic, more crazed, breaking out of its rusted state.

"John…you know I—I—"

John's breath ghosted over his face. They were close, closer than they'd ever been if the handcuffs incident was discounted.

"I know. You don't have to say it."

Sherlock tilted his head forward.

They jolted apart as Mikheia's scream tore through the hollow house.

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you all for the love (and for sticking with this)!<strong>

**Just to be clear, the flashback from the second chapter is intentionally similar.**


	20. a rusted heart

"I hate that this requires  
>for us to be together<br>and maybe I was wrong  
>this simple little strategy to get rid of all that's wrong with me<br>maybe they'd grow in someone else  
>maybe they'd grow in someone else"<p>

_252_ – Gem Club

* * *

><p>The smashing of glass. The one lone, terrible scream, cut off by a wet choking, reminding John of a trauma patient that once drowned in their own blood.<p>

"Watson! We know you're here!" A voice shouted, scratched and scraped to roughness by a poorly controlled cigarette addiction. "You want the boy alive then you show your face!"

There was a stifled grunt of pain, mostly likely from Mikheia being dragged up by his hair. John relaxed slightly.

He was still alive. For now.

John looked to Sherlock, still so close to him, into those silver coated eyes right on level with his. With an imperceptive shake of his head, a slight twitch to most, Sherlock conveyed to John his most immediate, raw thoughts before they could be processed. Don't. Don't go. Stay.

"I have to go." John said firmly, and Sherlock understood why. He already had a body count that Mikheia could not be added to. He understood, but did not approve.

Before he could let himself or the way Sherlock was silently looking at him talk him down from the noble ledge, John stood and hastily shrugged on a white shirt to hide his wounds although some, like the whip marks, were still left open and uncovered. The wounds might bleed or weep since they haven't properly scabbed over yet, so…right. He strode to the nearest dresser and dug through the clothes before finding an old black bike-rider's jacket that looked to be his size and pulled it on. As Mycroft was not one for motorbikes, John resorted to reading between the lines and leaving it at that.

He turned to Sherlock, who was sitting on the bed with the blankest, most barren face that John felt his resolve crumbling. He knelt before him, wincing a bit at the tender pain that sliced through him, and took Sherlock's face in his hands.

"Sherlock, you're going to have to trust me." He said steadily, barely betraying the shake of his voice. "I'll come back." He added quietly. "I'll come back to you. I'm never going to leave you. I'll just be…away. Only for a moment. You know that, right? Only for a moment."

"Yes." Sherlock nodded, unable to say anything else.

Then, with swiftness that he had thought John incapable of, John leaned forward, grabbed the back of his head, and pressed his lips to Sherlock's. John's mouth was warm and dry and alive, and stayed too briefly before he drew away, pausing a moment and staring at Sherlock with a steady, unwavering expression that Sherlock had only seen once before, when John had semtex strapped to his chest, and that he had never wanted to see again.

John backed away from him, that terrible, brave look on his face.

It was then Sherlock realised what he was going to do.

"John, no, don't—" He stood, but was cut off as John quickly shut the door and locked it from the outside. In that horrible moment, Sherlock felt there wasn't an appropriate enough curse for Mycroft's seemingly harmless fetish for antique décor.

There was a slight pause on the other side as John laid a hand against the door.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock." He murmured quietly. "But I have a lot of things to make up for."

Sherlock didn't respond, but pressed his hand against his side of the door, briefly indulging in the fantasy that in that moment their hands were perfectly aligned before dismissing it as highly improbable.

There was the sound of fading footsteps. The rust began to peel off Sherlock's seldom cared for heart, revealing the tender, unused muscle underneath and making him aware of it and its pain all the more strongly.

Sherlock pressed his ear as hard as he could against the door, focusing down the small hallway to the den, where he heard John stop.

"Well, well." The sandpaper voice said in the darkness. "John Watson. We meet at last." A pause. A consideration. "You don't look like I thought you would."

"Nor do you." John's response was curt but muffled, white noise submerged underwater.

"Reckon I look a right sight better than you do though." A low whistle. "Bloody hell, they really did a number on you, didn't they?"

"You could say that. I hear I have you to thank."

"You'll have a lot more to thank after I'm through with you, mate—"

Two loud gunshots cut him off.

One shattered the silence. The other shattered Sherlock.

They may as well have shot _him_ with the way he felt in that moment, the way the cold shock pulsed through him, coldly filling his blood with no no no no no, not him, not John, not when he had just saved him, not when he was so close, not when the spot on the bed was still warm from where he had been sitting, he couldn't just slip through his hands now—

He found himself banging against the door with a strength he didn't know he had until it ripped from its hinges and he was scrambling upwards in a mad dash to the foyer.

How could he be moving if his heart had stopped?

The wood floor was slick with blood, dark and glowing in the moonlight. Two bodies lay breathing, two bodies lay still.

John was sprawled in the middle of it, groaning and clutching his side.

"Johnjohnjohn…" Sherlock reached a trembling hand out to roll the doctor over.

"Fine," John wheezed, "I'm fine. One of them elbowed me in the stomach before I managed to send a bullet at him. Just…" A deep, rasping breath. "Just give me a minute."

Sherlock took in the two bodies, twin bullet holes in their foreheads. Henchmen, most likely hired guns, and poor shots too. It spoke quiet volumes of John's skill and marksmanship that he had stolen their guns and shot them both before they could even aim at him or Mikheia. Sherlock was proud of him, proud and perhaps a little awed and even jealous.

John, killing to save someone again. Always for someone else. Sherlock wondered if he'd ever be able to repay the favour.

"Where's the leader?" He asked.

"He jumped out the window." John gasped, nodding to the broken glass, the wind sending the curtains billowing.

"Are you alright?"

"What? Yes, Sherlock, I'm fine! He's getting away you know-"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes for a moment before grabbing John's collar, pulling him up and forward to meet his kiss. As their mouths met once more, they both blanked out for one brief moment, one glance of sunlight through a dark cloud passing overhead.

"You're more important than him, John." Sherlock murmured as he stared down at him through half-lidded eyes, his voice hoarse and quiet with something thick that he couldn't place.

Mikheia coughed from behind them.

"I'm fine by the way." He croaked hoarsely. One look from Sherlock told him that the boy had a bruise forming on his side where he'd been kicked and a cut to the cheek from glass shrapnel as the window was smashed from the outside, but that he was otherwise uninjured. There were worse injuries; gunshots, stabbings, a good mangling-

"Sherlock," John's voice brought him back. "Just go, go and be careful. We'll be alright, I promise. Here—" John handed him the gun that he had taken from one of the dead men before he shot them.

"John—"

"Go!" John barked, but Sherlock knew his irritation was not with Sherlock himself, but with the seconds that passed by and let the flypaper voice run further away.

Sherlock took one sparse second to stare at John, who was moving to stand and help Mikheia, before he turned and bolted out into the night.

* * *

><p>He was happily surprised to find that Mycroft had installed motion sensor lights in his lawn. Apparently his love of antique décor did not extend to security.<p>

He felt the familiar burn twist and wind itself through his body as he ran, his breath steaming in the cool night air. He still felt John's mouth pressed to his, and as mysterious as he found the appeal of kissing, he actually _enjoyed _something in that basic act, enjoyed something in being able to meet John somewhere he felt they had always belonged.

But he could think of it all he wanted later, perhaps while snogging John some more, for science and for himself. Okay, maybe more for the latter-

_ Later_. Earmark it and tuck it away for later. There were more pressing issues at present.

What did he know of the situation he had just entered?

The man (most definitely a man) was armed and coldly dangerous considering the ease with which he attacked Mikheia (Sherlock would have to personally thank him for that) and threatened John. Yet he had others with him, so he knew what fight he was coming into and he wanted to be prepared (_Not prepared enough, obviously _Sherlock thought with a brief flash of pride for John). Now he was fleeing, the cowardly criminal's way out. So he had somewhere or something to flee to, which means he's foreign. He certainly sounded British-possibly-Welsh from what Sherlock could make out through the door. This just increased the likelihood that he was involved with John's agency.

Sherlock flew down the lawn, dewy grass coating his shoes, before he caught a flash of movement to his right, where the lawn banked off into a private garden lined with trellises and decorative statues, nice to look at in the light, but in darkness turned into looming objects to hide behind.

Oh yes, he'd be having a talk with Mycroft about the numerous disadvantages of his estate.

Sherlock walked into the garden quietly, or as quietly as one could when they knew they could be seen.

What would John do?

Spot the vantage points. One from each trellis wall, three in all (_damn you Mycroft_), perhaps a few from behind the taller, broader statues, which left two, and then from his rear, near the beginning of what looked to be a hedge maze—

_Hedge maze? Oh for god's sake…_

A proclivity for luxury seemed to be Mycroft's Achilles' heel.

Sherlock stilled, his eyes sweeping the still, manicured garden.

It was too quiet. No movement. _Any_ movement would make a noise, the shifting of feet on marble or dirt, the sound of a gun being cocked, the steam of breath in the air, but there was no movement.

Everything was still.

Suddenly, someone shouted from inside, audible through the door he had left wide open, open for anyone to get in inconspicuously.

No, not someone.

"John…" Sherlock muttered. "_John_!"

He began a dead sprint over the lawn, his rusted heart beating away, oiled and slick with cold fear that sent something in him boiling.

Of course. Of course it was all a distraction, to get him lured away and tangled in darkness, a distraction for the sandpaper voice to go back and take the things that mattered, to go back and rob him of everything.

Another gunshot. Another shout.

His heart was working itself into a frenzied friction, grinding against his breastbone and sending painfully hot sparks against his chest.

"John!" He burst into the foyer, sliding over the previously shed blood that had trickled in from the den. As he breathed in, he smelled a hot, pervading, metallic scent, thick with iron.

This new blood was fresh.

This new blood was Mikheia's.

* * *

><p>Mycroft was, if nothing else, effective at handling crises efficiently.<p>

The helicopter air-lifted Mikheia to the nearest hospital, leaving the three to ride in a tense silence through the streets until they too arrived at the hospital.

Sherlock did not say one word, his face blank and cold. John wanted to ask why, but he didn't need to. Mycroft had the good sense to remain preoccupied with his phone for a majority of the trip save for informing them that Mikheia was in surgery and then again to inquire when he could get a full report from either of them pertaining to the events of the night. John remembered answering vaguely.

He didn't quite grasp much other than Sherlock's constant presence. Sherlock bursting into the house after Mikheia had moved into the gunman's view from the window, Sherlock collapsing beside John as Mikheia cried out in pain, his shoulder raw and pulpy and bleeding, Sherlock at his side when he desperately tried to staunch Mikheia's wound, beside him when Mycroft arrived, Sherlock quietly sitting next to him in the car, his hand covering John's as it rested on his knee (something that they both knew Mycroft noted), and then perched next to him, silently sedentary, in the hospital waiting room.

"I guess you don't need me to save you anymore." Sherlock said an hour into their wait, the first thing he had said since the shooting, a calm smirk on his face.

"Don't be stupid." John said with a simple smile, sipping at the too-thin, piss-poor excuse for tea. "I'll always need you."

John, saying the things Sherlock couldn't.

Sherlock's eyes narrowed as John let his smile grow thin, wearing it too long before it faded.

"Show me, John."

"Show you what?" John asked innocently.

"Feigning ignorance doesn't compliment you. You're too good for it."

John hesitated before he began. "I thought you had missed it, earlier." He said quietly, scratching at his ear with a grimace. "I thought maybe you hadn't noticed, but then why would you? It's not a spot people think about, even though you apparently saw me naked after I passed out the other day—"

"John…" His tone was warning, indicating that he get to the point.

John stared at him a moment and sighed, looking all around the room as if anything there could offer distraction.

"There's one place you didn't bandage. I saw it this morning, once I—once I remembered how it felt when they carved it in." He swallowed roughly before pulling back a lock of hair by his left ear, giving Sherlock a perfect view of the letters cut into John's skin, rust coloured and curving around the flesh near the shell of his ear. They stared at him maliciously, taunting, a call from beyond the grave. He felt like he was staring into the Hound's eyes, like he was looking down at John from the roof, like John was sitting beside him, so tangibly close and warm, only this left a coldness in his heart, like wet iron that was beginning to freeze.

He reached out a hand to skim the letters.

_I.O.U._

* * *

><p><strong>Hello everyone! Just letting you all know that I'm posting this before leaving for my break, so updates may be a little sparse this week! As always, I commend you all on your reviews, because each one was beautiful in its own right.<strong>


	21. the pale lie

John could hear Mikheia's laugh from down the hallway as he neared the boy's door. So the nurse hadn't left yet. He should wait until she was done giving him the rounds.

Mikheia had been remarkably upbeat about the whole event, despite having a hole punched in his shoulder, despite blacking out from the pain right as Mycroft's helicopter landed on the front lawn (John hadn't missed Sherlock's eye roll), despite the hour long helicopter ride to Berlin, and despite being on three different kind of antibiotic-painkiller cocktails. Maybe that was what made him so happy…

He hadn't seen Sherlock since the detective had grazed his fingers over the raised skin, that scarring condemnation, that _I.O.U._ like it was a chalk mark he hoped would wipe off before he stood and without another word stalked off down the hall. Part of John wanted to feel hurt, wanted to feel rejected, but he pushed back against it, knowing that it was Sherlock's nature to do things no one understood. But John understood; he understood very well actually.

Sherlock used his aloof attitude to distance himself from an issue, to give him a vantage point and clarity so he could spot and gather facts that his emotions blinded him of, but with John his mind was in constant fog and mist that hung over him like spider web, unable to escape, unable to burn away. He needed space, especially to clear his mind of the previous night's events, and John understood that, at least in essence. John, contrary to appearances, understood many things about Sherlock, like why he had allowed Mikheia to come with him to Bruges and then Leipzig (because nothing was ever just an _accident _with Sherlock), why he had looked at John so forlornly in that hotel room (because he didn't know how to say sorry, but John knew he wanted to), why he let John kiss him (because John was saying sorry), why he kissed John back (because he was saying sorry too), and why he had all but sprinted off down that hospital hallway after seeing John's ear.

John sighed. Mikheia had offered him a painkiller or two, just to take the initial bite out of his wounds, but John had refused, although not on the grounds of personal safety. The medicine was perfectly fine and appropriate for both of them to use, but he didn't want to. The pain kept him focused, kept him reminded of just what he had been through and that he had survived.

Maybe one day he would have the heart to tell Sherlock all that had really happened.

Something about this hospital made him uneasy. Mycroft had assured them copiously that the security on the hospital was airtight and that they were perfectly safe here in Berlin, but John still felt uncomfortable, especially after Sherlock's scoff at his brother's declarations of safety. Yet Sherlock would not allow Mikheia to be treated here if he felt it was fully unsafe. John smirked. Like Sherlock had any say in what happened now, much less where Mikheia was treated. And it wasn't like they had had many options to choose from after he'd been shot. They'd had to do the best with what they had. But he and Mycroft had silently agreed long ago to pretend in all situations like Sherlock was the one in charge and let him feel important, even if he was being an arsehole; _especially_ if he was an arsehole, because that was usually when his mind burned at its brightest and they couldn't afford or care to break him from his revelations.

He dedicated himself to Sherlock, to going out to get groceries because Sherlock didn't like to, he took calls and cases like a secretary because Sherlock didn't care to talk to people if he deemed it unnecessary, he was at Sherlock's every beck and call like his own personal butler, and what did he get in return?

John shut his eyes tightly and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He'd been having misgivings to say the least about a relationship with Sherlock. He had doubts and fears just like everyone else, but they ran deeper whenever Sherlock was tangled in them.

He knew he was behaving too rashly, he knew that something so fresh shouldn't be spoiled so fast, but he couldn't stop the shadows from rising where they lay. He felt dazed, stunned, like everything around him was in motion and blurred yet he remained still among it all.

Everything had happened so fast, but he was to blame for kicking it into motion. He had kissed Sherlock first. He was responsible for whatever happened afterwards. Yet…he had thought he was going to die. He had stood up and kissed Sherlock and lock him in and left the room thinking he was walking to his death. But he was confident in his abilities, confident that he was the better man in the situation and, if anything, he'd get Mikheia out alive (which, technically, he had), confident that he could steal a gun, aim, and shoot before the other two. And he was proven right. But when Sherlock had kissed _him_, when their roles had switched and it was Sherlock kneeling over him, John's back soaking with someone else's blood, with a desperate emptiness on his face, John knew what his actions had done. He knew he had opened the box and there was no lidding it again. Sure, he could ignore it and then he and Sherlock could part ways (never again, not in a million years). Sure, they could pretend like it never happened and go back to their own happy little adventures like they did before. But none of that could ever, _ever_ match up to what could happen if he accepted it. Accepted the fact that he, a man, loved Sherlock, another man, and it felt okay—more than okay—it felt fucking _beautiful_, like he belonged there in that small, cramped space of Sherlock's heart, and Sherlock belonged in his, although he was getting the better deal, as John's was roomier.

Yet Sherlock scared him. In many and most ways but in violence. His coldness, his ability to separate himself from everything, to sever off reality like a gangrenous limb and live without it, his distance…was he able to cut John out and then sew him back on like a reattached arm? John knew nothing of what their separation had been like for Sherlock, he had only gotten glimpses, flashes of light before the darkness returned. John's fears were open water concerning Sherlock, and he found himself threatening to drown more often than he was comfortable with.

And where was Sherlock now?

John didn't know. Somewhere, being a mad genius alone in a corner, he supposed.

He needed to stop thinking about this. He was tired, he was crashing off adrenaline and shock and he was possibly feverish judging by the burn of the wounds on his back.

The nurse came out quietly, shutting the door with a smile on her face.

"How is he?"

"Better." She said brightly. "Much better."

John knocked on the door before going in.

A bright smile lit Mikheia's face when he saw John walk in.

"Morning!"

"Hey Mikheia…how are you feeling?"

"Good, sir. I feel very tip and top of the shape."

"Mikehia, I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"For that." John said, motioning to the bandages. "For everything we've put you through."

Mikheia stared at him for a moment.

"You are…moving on without me. You and Mr. Holmes are continuing your quest."

"Yes…but _quest_ isn't the word I'd use."

"But you are knights ridding the world of evil. That sounds like a quest to me, sir."

"A quest has one goal, though. I don't know if Sherlock wanted just one when he—when he left the first time."

"What is your goal, then?" Mikheia asked and John fell into silence, thinking.

"I want to drag Sherlock back to Baker Street kicking and screaming if I have to, and I want to live the rest of my life in relative peace." John paused. "With him, I suppose." He added with a smile.

"To be together at the end, without interruption." Mikheia reiterated. "It is a quest now." Mikheia smiled as he stared at his hospital bracelet. "I think, in that tale I was the bumbling saddle boy."

"Mikheia, you know you're anything but a saddle boy."

"Then I was the horse."

They both laughed.

"You know, when I go back to Novgorod, I will tell my friends of our adventures and they will not believe me. They will think I am telling a pale lie."

"A white lie?"

Mikheia nodded.

"Ah, well…I mean you can't fake a bullet wound, can you?"

"I suppose not." Mikheia smiled. "I guess I should just not wear my shirt all the time, then? And then they might believe me."

John laughed and Mikheia looked to his left shoulder, where the bandages wrapped around a new scar. His smile faded to a quiet grin.

"We match now, sir." He said quietly.

John smiled.

"You know, you don't have to call me that. I'm not Sherlock. I'm not your boss."

"It is an act of deference, sir. I owe you my life now."

"Well, you owe it a couple times over, so I _might_ just overlook them all."

They both chuckled and fell into a comfortable silence. John liked that. He liked that he wasn't expected or required to talk much in either Sherlock or Mikheia's presence and that there could be silence where nothing wanted or needed to be said.

"It is curious, though, is it not?" Mikheia said, scratching at the burn mark on his collar.

"What is?"

"Well, in his travels, Mr. Holmes made the choice to go alone, but instead he let the both of us join him."

"Sherlock didn't _let_ me join him…" John scoffed then thought better. Sherlock had indeed_ let _John join him. He had let him live in his flat with him, had let him go on that call on the adventure he had dubbed the Study in Pink, had let him call himself colleague and then friend…Sherlock had _let_ John do many things.

So what did that leave John with to do on his own? What could he do without the direct permission of others? He had kissed Sherlock, for one. He hadn't asked or been granted permission for that one. Was that all? Were spontaneous acts of affection all he was limited to? He needed more than that to go on, surely. He had spared and saved Sherlock's life twice in the church, and he had expressly gone _against_ permission from his superiors. So that was it, then? Affection and perfidy was all he was allowed to use for his own freedom to do what he wanted?

This was one hell of an existential crisis.

"I'll see you later, yeah?" John said, affectionately patting the boy on his uninjured shoulder.

"Most indubitably, sir."

"Good. Get some rest. Doctor's orders."

Mikheia smiled as John shut the door. Once he knew John couldn't see him, Mikheia shut his eyes and let himself collapse into pain.

* * *

><p>What was wrong with him? Was it because of the ambiguity of his and Sherlock's possible relationship? Was it because he was tired? Was it because he had learned that the price of his freedom, concerning the agency, involved lies and drugged deceit?<p>

John supposed it was a cocktail of all of those.

He sat outside Mikheia's room, on an empty stretcher tucked away in an alcove, hands clasped in front of him like a penitent man.

"John."

John looked up, into Sherlock's face, calm, pale, and beautiful. He had figured something out. John hadn't wanted him to, but Sherlock was Sherlock, and so of course it was inevitable.

The question. The question he knew Sherlock had wanted to ask since he had shown up at Mycroft's door, bloody and barely coherent, but had never known how to bring it up.

"Where is Mary?"

John shut his eyes.

* * *

><p><strong>And thus ends Arc I! Have no fear, Arc II begins next chapter! I'll be home tomorrow, so I'll try to get it up by then!<strong>


	22. the dark and light side of the moon

Arc II

* * *

><p>Choose Where to Call Home<p>

* * *

><p><strong>cwtch<strong> (_South Wales_) (kʊtʃ)

-n

1. To be held close in somebody's arms in a loving way; to hold somebody in this way

2. A hiding place

* * *

><p>"the cells of this body<p>

have all lost their memory

confused by each other

to work out of order"

_252_ – Gem Club

**_(a highly recommended song to listen to concerning this chapter)_**

* * *

><p>The train swayed lazily back and forth, ignorant of its passengers, ignorant of their baggage, ignorant of their circumstances. The train knew no more of the fact that it held the world's only consulting detective and his partner-slash-assistant-slash-best friend than it did of how exactly the universe worked and if there was a god spinning it all around. It just knew its duty, go here and go there, rest, then repeat. Go from Prague to Sarajevo, go from Berlin to Prague, go from Bruges to Leipzig, go from Novgorod to Klaipeda…the destination doesn't matter to a train. It, for lack of a better description, simply doesn't know any better.<p>

So it was no surprise to the train that it was unfamiliar to the entanglements of love as well as the tension that occasionally and inevitably springs between two people who love each other, a tension neither is willing to initiate the solution to for fear of looking like a right idiot.

If the train knew what idiots were, it would certainly think (privately, to itself, because it was a train that liked to be polite) that the two men in compartment 22 of carriage 1B were indeed right idiots.

Sherlock and John stared at each other silently, the train that knew nothing of love or idiots rocking onwards, both unwilling to look foolish, although for different reasons than usual.

Sherlock did not want to acknowledge that he had been both right and wrong in this certain situation. John was simply tired of being the first to initiate their peacetalks, tired of being used, tired of Sherlock's callousness, tired of many things, but those were what he could immediately think of. He figured that, after all the time they had spent together and then the three years of exile, Sherlock might have learned how to compromise or at least lay his pride down for five seconds and apologise. He was mistaken, but not for the motives he'd assumed.

Sherlock knew how to apologise. Everyone _knew_ how to apologise. It didn't mean he didn't know what it meant. He just didn't care to. He supposed John would've spoken by now, but he understood the gravity of the previous night's events.

He would understand if John didn't forgive him for a long time to come.

He certainly wouldn't.

* * *

><p>They'd started off, generally speaking, well enough. An hour out of Berlin, spent in comfortable silence in their quiet compartment of their considerably empty train. Not many people wanted to go to Prague, it seemed. Prague didn't exactly call to them and beckon them down for a vacation.<p>

"How are they?" Sherlock asked quietly as the train rocked like a calm ocean, breaking the hour's silence.

John looked to him from the window, confusion in his face.

"They?"

"The—" Sherlock cut off, unable to continue, but gestured to John's back, annoyed at his inability to speak those few words that gave a name to what John had suffered through.

"Oh…The doctor in Berlin said most would fade soon. Little to no scarring."

"Good. And the um—your ear?"

"That—that's going to be there a while."

"How long?"

"The rest of my life." John said, the fact that he didn't want to talk about it evident in his voice. Sherlock let it drop.

"John, you know that Mary—"

John scoffed.

"Mary. What do you think I know about Mary?"

"I'm sure she has an explanation."

"I'm sure she does, too. I'm sure it's quite good and explains exactly why she left me with those fuckers, why she _left_ me to have the shit beat out of me, have my back split open, to have—to have…" John trailed off, not wanting to go on. Sherlock gazed at him, knowing not to push him farther.

"I know you have problems with people leaving, John—"

"That's an understatement." John muttered. "I wonder why?"

Sherlock wished he could diffuse John as easily as Mikheia had diffused him.

"I am not the one you're mad at."

"Are you sure about that?" John bit. He didn't know where these words, this anger, was coming from, didn't know from what wound it bled out of and he couldn't staunch it.

"I thought you'd forgiven me."

Sherlock's voice washed water over the angry wound, cleaning it for the moment of spiked irritation and those barbed words that tasted like battery acid and left a bad taste in John's mouth.

"I did." John sighed. "I do." He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry."

Sherlock felt his envy prickle. John could say it so easily.

"It's alright."

The train rocked on.

* * *

><p>Their silence unbroken, they had gone to sleep. Or, rather, John had, stretching out on the seat opposite Sherlock and using his stolen jacket as a pillow. Sherlock merely switched from softly watching him to looking out of the window.<p>

Finally, when he couldn't stand it, he moved to sit beside him. John didn't stir. Good. He didn't want him awake to hear him.

"I'm sorry, John." He began quietly. "I suspect that you already know that, without me saying it, because you can do wonderful things like that, but I—I thought I should tell you all the same." He felt a bitter smile come on his face. "Look at me. I can't even apologise when you're sentient."

John didn't reply, far away in his subconscious, Sherlock guessed, as he slid down to the REM state.

"I know you've wondered why exactly I left. I've been a bit vague about that, haven't I? I don't think I can really tell you one reason. I suppose the gist of it is that I left you so you would be safe, but you found me anyways. You found me, and now all those three years have gone to hell for nothing because you're more dangerous than I thought you could be. But it's not a bad thing, you know. It doesn't scare me. I think I may actually love you more for it."

A smile with no bitterness came onto his face. John didn't see it.

"It's nice to finally say that, isn't it? I see why you looked so relieved when you said it…it's funny though, that I can say it in any language you'd like except the one you want me to. To be honest, I don't know why I'm so afraid….except that's a lie. I once told myself that I'd never lie to you if it was unnecessary. Did you know that? It was right after that incompetent cabbie. I knew right after, I knew that I'd grow quite fond of you if you stayed. And you did stay. So I do, I do know why I'm afraid. You're so much _better_ than me, John. You are. I knew it'd take one incredibly proficient coping mechanism for me to deal with that, so I told myself that I didn't deserve your small intellect. Can you believe that? Of course you can…"

John's face did not give away whether he believed Sherlock or not.

"Anyways, my undermining of your perfectly adequate mental capacity did nothing to quell how I felt about you, as well as your superiority. Your unworthiness of me morphed itself into my unworthiness of you, and I told myself that you would never truly feel the way you do for me. I felt like I could live like Atlas if it meant I could see you every day. After I left, I felt like everything had collapsed onto me, the whole universe, and I managed to pull myself out of the wreck even though it meant leaving you behind. I think I may have died on some level, but of course that's insignificant since I'm breathing and talking and all that…"

He trailed off, letting the heavy silence back into the room. Sherlock stared down at John, at that pale, relaxed face that looked so haunted in certain light but was peaceful under the moon.

"You're many things to me, John, and anything that I am to you is not even half as worthy. You are a far better man than anything I could be without using brains as an excuse." He exhaled quietly in a way that was not yet a sigh. "I love you, but I don't deserve you." He finished quietly.

He stood and softly pulled open the compartment door before disappearing down the hall in a wisp of cold air and dark coat.

* * *

><p>John's eyes snapped open, wide and frozen with alarm.<p>

No, no, no, no it wasn't happening like this, not if he could help it—

"Sherlock…" He murmured. "_Sherlock_!"

He bolted up from his makeshift bed, pulling on his thin thermal and stolen jacket as he stumbled out into the empty, chilled hall.

The empty hall.

No, no, no…it just didn't work like that. Sherlock couldn't just _leave_, they were on a moving train for god's sake—

But Sherlock was prone to leap off buildings at impossibly heights and survive. A train would be child's play for him if he had truly planned it out, if he had known that he was going to leave again, leave him, leave John out in an empty compartment without so much as a goodbye.

John was about to round the corner to the lavatory and the next carriage when he ran smack into someone—no—

"Sherlock!" John said, his voice strained, and he wrapped his arms around Sherlock as if he was desperately trying to prove to himself that this man was solid, not an entity.

"John?"

"Don't…don't do that again—you can't just—just—"

"Just what? Use the lavatory?" Sherlock asked calmly, shutting the carriage door. "And do keep your voice down. People are sleeping."

"Oh, don't even give me that. This carriage is empty save for the couple at the far end and you know it."

"Anyways, John, what was so important that you had to rush into the hall and hug me like I was the messiah come to earth?"

John stopped, letting his hands fall from Sherlock, switching his affections off like a powered-down machine. He stood in that sparse carriage with his messy hair and in his stolen jacket, his thin little thermal, and his pyjamas, and he looked so damn _lost_ and alone that for one single terrible moment Sherlock felt like his heart might have actually stopped out of sympathetic grief.

"You can't just _leave_ like that, Sherlock."

"I have to inform you every time I leave a room where I'm going? I didn't know you expected that of me John and I'll try to amend it, but you have to tell me these things you know, I'm not a mind-reader although telepathy has been a long-standing interest of mine—"

"No, Sherlock, I mean—Christ—I mean you can't just say those things you said and then—and then _leave_."

A silence worked itself between them, spreading itself thin in the process.

"You heard me." Sherlock said calmly. It was not a question because he didn't need to ask.

"Of course I heard you." John smiled weakly. "You can't go up to someone and talk in their ear and expect that they won't hear you."

"I meant it all, John. It's unnecessary for me to lie to you right now, and I don't much feel like it anyways."

An understanding smile came to John's face. It seemed sad to Sherlock.

"I know you did."

Sherlock stepped forward, bringing a hand to outline John's face as they stared at each other. John let his fingers lace themselves with Sherlock's.

"Why is that an unhappy realisation for you?" Sherlock asked quietly. John thought his eyes were shaded like the thin line that separated the dark side of the moon from the one that shone down on them now.

"It's not, Sherlock. That's the thing."

"Then why do you look unhappy?"

"Because being in love feels like that sometimes."

"You think your love for me is negative?"

"No, but it's been through some negative things, just like yours."

"I suppose this is an 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' type of thing?"

"I wouldn't call it that," John said with a small smile. "But it'll do."

John kissed him then. Sherlock liked it, liked the warmth and softness.

"I'm glad you're here, John." Sherlock said quietly as they broke apart, resting his head on John's as he shut his eyes, hoping John would read between the lines.

He opened his eyes again and found John quietly looking into them. He knew.

"So am I."

They both smiled. Sherlock let his head dip down, let his mouth graze John's as they stood in that second-class train compartment with signs in a language neither was particularly good at as it rocked gently like a boat amidst calm waves, one hand tightening in the other's while the other snaked around the backs of their necks.

As the train rocked a little too much and they swayed, suddenly the kiss grew harder, more insistent on asserting itself as something that was permanent and not fleeting, not leaving, just staying. The train rocked again and Sherlock was knocked back against the seat, coming to rest with John sitting over him, the moonlight brushing his fair hair, his weight warmly pressed against him, reminding Sherlock that this man was real and alive and choosing to be with him. There were so many things he needed to know-

"John—" Sherlock started, but was cut off as John kissed him, running his tongue lightly along the edge of his lip. He groaned, settling back into the seat before sliding back so he was lying all the way across the seat.

"Yes?" John asked, kissing the spot on his neck where his pulse yammered itself away like it didn't know how to quiet itself in the situation. He leaned back, looking down at Sherlock expectantly, and the light hitting his face, illuminating such a haunted man when he looked peaceful, seemed to punch Sherlock straight in the heart like a spasm of electricity.

Sherlock let his brain turn off and just stared at him for a moment. As long as he lived, he'd remember how John's face looked in that moment, a calm happiness glowing from him, a smile moving behind his lips before it dawned.

"Never mind." He decided.

"Alright." John shrugged, letting Sherlock pull him down for another kiss before breaking apart as the detective's hands began to move. "Ah, sorry, hold on—" John leaned back, away from Sherlock, and started to work his way out of his jacket.

"I think it suits you well, you know." Sherlock said, watching John struggle and feeling his chest grow cold from John's brief absence.

"That's good." John smiled, quickly adding another kiss to its predecessors. The jacket was halfway off. "Mycroft asked me to give it back."

"Really?" Sherlock grinned. Another kiss. "And what did you say?"

"Told him to sod off. I felt bad about it at the time, but that's what he gets for asking me when I'm getting antiseptic poured on my back by a doctor who was having trouble with English…I feel better about it now, though."

Sherlock chuckled and John smiled as he tossed the jacket to the floor before returning to his previously occupied spot. He let his hands roam over Sherlock's face and felt like a blind man reading braille from the way he could feel Sherlock's pain and sadness and quiet loneliness and tense pleas that had been hardening layer over layer for the past three years.

Sherlock's hands pushed past John's shirt and grazed over the bandages on his back, thickly applied and properly secured by the doctors in Berlin, much stronger than their makeshift clinic in Mycroft's guest bedroom.

He stopped as John groaned.

"Does it still hurt?" He asked quietly.

"No," John replied. "No, that felt…good."

Sherlock felt a grin come on his face and he kissed John once more. He wondered if this was what happiness felt like. If it wasn't happiness, he'd have to think of a new name for it, for this comfortable bliss that so reminded him of being a kid coming in from the cold and taking a warm bath, like every inch of his skin became hot and prickling as the cold melted away.

"_John_…"

In that one second, that one moment of warmth and soft harmony and fogged vision, John swiped his hand to wipe the fog off and had a moment of clarity. He read many things in the way Sherlock said his name, in the way half of their clothes were laying on floor, in the way Sherlock was looking up at him, in the way his hands rested on the curves of John's neck, and he shut the book.

"Sherlock," He began in a hoarse whisper. He was going to hate himself so much, but if he didn't do this, he'd hate himself so much more. "I don't think this is what you want."

"Don't be stupid, John." Sherlock said, pressing a kiss to his bare unmarked shoulder. "It doesn't become you."

"No, Sherlock," He needed a different approach. "I mean…really? You want this to happen here? In a _train_? "

"Yes." Sherlock said hoarsely.

"I'm sorry." John said, his lips grazing Sherlock's before he pulled himself away. "That's not how I want it to go. And once that brain of yours catches up, I don't think you will either."

Sherlock stared up at him, his cheeks flushed. John liked seeing colour on his face. It was a nice change, one where he could see it rise to Sherlock's cheeks instead of seeing it spill freely over them, unleashed past split skin like at St. Bart's.

"You're right." Sherlock muttered softly. "You're right."

"I'm sorry, Sherlock." John repeated. "But it just wouldn't be right. We'll come back to it later, yeah? At a better time and place?"

"Do I need a reservation or something? You're making it seem like a five-star restaurant. And I don't want there to be a list, John, I really don't—"

"No," John laughed. "No, you idiot." He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on Sherlock's forehead. "There's no list. Just one name." Kissed his nose. "Only one." Kissed his mouth, first his upper lip, and then the lower one.

"Good." Sherlock pushed up and back to lean against the seat, his legs splayed out under John. He laid his head against the wall and arm rest. John liked seeing the few dark locks of hair that had matted to his head with sweat.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm perspiring more than usual, to be honest, which is quite abnormal so you should feel proud of yourself, but other than that I feel quite…good, as you so eloquently put it."

_Good_ was an understatement for both parties involved.

"No, that's all well and good, but…aren't you disappointed or upset or mad or something? I'd understand if you were, it wasn't the best thing to do, but it was right, I mean, think of all the people that have sat here for god's sake—"

"John."

"Yeah?"

"Be quiet."

John fell silent, letting the both of them immerse themselves in that quiet moment in that dark carriage under that bright and softly-smiling moon that shone down on them as the incognizant train carried them farther away from that bloodied past that was so like a nightmare, full of shadows and strangers and that special boy with a special spider scar who now had a webbed scar to give the spider a home and whose story was far from over.

They sat there in that humming darkness, letting themselves comfort the other in silent affection. For the first time in a long time they felt safe, and it wasn't in some bunker deep underground or in a thickly protected fortress with cold iron walls, it was found it was found in a second-rate carriage on an old train in a foreign land within two pairs of arms, one thin and bird-like with hollow bones, the other gentler and stronger. But, in Sherlock's arms, John felt like it may as well have been an impenetrable fortress made of wrought iron, which, though beautiful to view, with its elegant, twisted dark limbs, looked laughable, yet it did its duty well. And, in John's embrace, Sherlock felt surrounded on all sides by an unbreakable wall somewhere deep in the warmed womb of the earth that smelled of pillars of salt and solidly-packed sand. He felt like crying in that moment as John held him, if only to convey to John how he truly felt in that moment. But John wouldn't want his tears, even if it proved his longstanding theory that Sherlock was not the inhuman robot that he claimed to be. Sherlock grinned at the thought.

Moriarty was right then, in a sense. Sherlock had been a fake.

He let his hands tighten around John.

He'd remember it all later and go over it detail by detail as if his life depended on it, after the encounter the next day in Prague. He'd remember, and try to find a way for John to forgive him.


	23. the driver

"Into their cheering hands  
>And the faces of his friends<br>No blood turned so bitter  
>And skulls stayed simple"<p>

_Breakers_ – Gem Club

* * *

><p>Sherlock was in the middle of one of the most beautiful silences of his life before the sun rose and they arrived in Prague and he had to wake John all too soon to change trains. But how he loved watching those blue eyes open, watching sentience pour into them like water, a smile blooming on John's face as he stared up at Sherlock from where his head lay on his lap. He decided then and there that he would like to see it happen every morning.<p>

In the moment of John waking and John smiling, Sherlock could find no trace of the cold, effectively lethal assassin that he had seen not a week ago, when he had laid eyes on John for the first time in three years and John had stared back blankly in his detached, isolated state whose lone focus was the shedding of blood of the people who threatened himself or his friends or his…lover?

The term sounded clunky to Sherlock, because he was sure that, of all the things he and John were, they were not _lovers_. And not only because their relationship was unconsummated; there were scores of lovers that had relationships that went without consummation for very long periods or none at all. It was just that the term connoted two people who had nothing else to do _but_ love each other, and that was most certainly not John or Sherlock since they had many things to do like solve crimes and shoot people and snog, if he could address it so simply. Loving each other was almost an afterthought, something they did alone after the adrenalin had worn off and the danger was over and they were mending their wounds.

He looked down at John, still half-asleep in the pale dawn's light.

They were certainly alone now.

He dipped his head and let the tip of his nose brush John's.

"Morning, John."

John smiled at him and let Sherlock kiss him with a warmth that felt like the rising sun that shone on them.

"And a good morning to you too." John muttered as they broke away.

"We're about to pull into Prague." He noted, looking out the window at the oncoming station.

"Fantastic," John said, sitting up. "I'm starving."

"Would you mind picking up the food then while I run to the bathroom?"

"But there's a bathroom here."

"Yes, but the sink is broken and I'd like to wash my face and perhaps shave while I'm at it. I'm almost entirely sure that you're not a fan of whisker burn."

"Well, I wouldn't know unless you decided to grow a beard." John said as he stood.

"Didn't your girlfriends ever say anything?"

"Never gave them the chance." John replied, shrugging on a new shirt. "Have you ever seen me with stubble, Sherlock?"

"Once, when we first met."

"Well then that was one time too many."

"You should try it, John. It could look good on you—"

"Doubtful."

Sherlock smiled, stepping closer to him. He liked that he never faked smiles around John.

"—or I might like it."

John considered it for a moment, making a thoughtful face before pulling Sherlock's face down to his and kissing him, letting his hands run over the faint stubble that had indeed appeared on Sherlock's face.

They broke apart as the train stopped.

"We'll see about that."

* * *

><p>John couldn't help it. He was suspicious. Maybe it was Sherlock's history of thinly veiled lies or excuses or his track record of just what he said he'd do and what he actually did.<p>

John followed him, clutching the sandwich he had just bought for them to share in one hand (he'd done quite a lot of pointing and gesturing to get it).

The crowd was thick at the hour. John was just short enough that if Sherlock looked back in a glance he wouldn't stand out, but there was no mistaking that tall, lean frame for someone else.

But Sherlock didn't look back. His actions seemed innocent enough that he thought he wouldn't be followed or that John would take his word on his plans. John was about to give up and just go eat.

Then Sherlock bypassed the men's room.

His curiosity was piqued now. Although he could hardly read Czech it was certainly a bathroom judging by the sign and a quick check told John it was unlocked and empty. So where was Sherlock going, then?

He ducked back into the crowd, just barely catching that head of dark curls, that blue scarf, and that pale skin before the man they belonged to rounded a corner.

John watched him go into a little in-and-out café and take a seat across from someone.

Unbelievable. Sherlock hadn't noticed him at all. Either his stealth was superb or Sherlock's mind was somewhere more important. John's bet was on the latter.

John moved to look in through the window.

"Good." Sherlock said as he sat. "You're here."

Mary looked up at him.

* * *

><p>After an hour's search, Sherlock found John in an empty men's room, which was normal enough; he believed it was the one he had passed on the way in to meet Mary. It was best that John didn't know, at least not until he could explain it all—<p>

It was odd though, how he found John curled against the wall in the handicap stall, asleep. He had certainly slept well enough on the train…why would he be tired?

Sherlock knelt before him.

"John?" He asked, nudging him awake.

John opened his eyes. There was something heavy, something blurred and distant that Sherlock couldn't quite place.

"And so the prodigal son has returned—" John said blearily as he stood.

"John? Are you alright?" Sherlock asked as John pushed past him out of the stall to the sink.

It was far too early for John to be drunk, not to mention that not enough time had elapsed for the intoxicated state he seemed to be displaying.

"I saw you with her, you know." John slurred as he washed his hands. "With Mary."

Sherlock froze, one hand on the stall door. John looked up at him in the mirror.

"I followed you and I was about to turn back because I thought maybe for once you were actually doing what you said you were going to, but then—then I saw you sit across from her." John turned around, leaning against the sink. "Mind telling me what's going on?"

"John—"

"Did you think I was stupid, Sherlock? Is that it? That my puny little brain couldn't possibly catch up to your massive intellect and I'd just wait on the train with a bloody _sandwich_ for us to share like a good boy?"

Sherlock ducked as John tossed said sandwich at him.

"John, listen to me…" He paused, waiting for John to react.

"Well," John gestured with his hands. "Out with it then."

"Mary is not your enemy."

"Really?" John laughed bitterly. "Then why'd she leave me in Bruges?"

"She didn't leave you. Mycroft removed her."

"Mycroft…?" John breathed.

"Mary has never worked for your agency, at least not directly." Sherlock continued. "She works for Mycroft, my dear, doddering, disingenuous brother. It was under his orders that she let you be taken into the Kremlin. It was under his orders that she 'rescue' you when you slipped out of his hands."

"Mary told me that the agency had put me in the Kremlin."

"She wasn't lying, exactly. Didn't you ever wonder who the head of your agency was?"

John groaned. "Of course." He ran a hand blearily through his hair, messing it up further. "Mycroft was the one that put me in the Kremlin?"

"Yes."

"And he knew what was happening to me?"

"I believe so."

John began to laugh, much to Sherlock's confusion. He laughed until his face began to turn red.

"John?"

The manic smile faded from his face.

"Well, you two make a right pair, don't you?" John asked with no mirth in his voice, only an acidic sharpness. "The Holmes Brothers: helping the helpless, but only if it's convenient. The slogan just writes itself—"

John cut himself off as he smashed his fist into the nearest mirror, sending glass showering onto the floor and slicing through the skin of his already flayed hands. Sherlock nearly jumped at the sound of smashing glass and the smell of fresh blood and the sight of John, his John, in the midst of an emotional meltdown.

"John, what are you doing—?"

"Do you know how _hard_ it's been for me to get control of my life since you threw yourself off the roof of St. Bart's and I heard your body hit the street?" John asked, his voice cracking.

"Technically it was the sidewalk—"

"_And do you know_—" John continued. "How much of myself that I've had to sacrifice to protect myself? And not just from other people, from _me_. Do you know that I used to lie awake at night and tell myself that it was my fault that you were dead—my fault—because I fell for the trick about Mrs. Hudson, because I wasn't as stupendously brilliant as you to figure it all out in time?"

He smashed the next mirror just as calmly as he had the first, blood running down his arm.

"Even though Moriarty was dead, he had still won because he took you from me, and I knew deep down that if our positions were switched, you would have saved me in no time flat, like with those Chinese gangsters or whatever the hell they were—"

He smashed the next one, sending a cut that was almost deep enough to slice down his radial artery. Almost, but not quite. Sherlock needed to stop him, needed to stop him now, before he could do any more damage. He could tackle him, but the floor was so littered with broken glass that it made a full frontal assault a terrible idea. He needed to do this safely.

"John, calm down, you're hurting yourself…" John didn't listen, and advanced to the last mirror.

"And do you know how it felt when I thought I finally had control of my life and then you come back and royally fuck it all up?" Sherlock couldn't stop the destruction of the final mirror. "I thought I was the one in charge of my life, Sherlock! Not you, not Mary, not bloody sodding _MYCROFT_ ! Christ, I mean, have I truly done _anything_ on my own without anybody meddling?" He headed to send another fist into the already smashed glass. With the sharp edges and the velocity the tissue damage would be so hard to repair—

"John, _John—stop_!" The sheer forcefulness of Sherlock's voice stopped him. "Mary left Bruges because I told her to." Sherlock said calmly, hoping it was enough to stop him, hoping that the information was heavy enough to distract him.

John didn't turn around. Not yet. He must have heard wrong.

"What?"

"Mary left you in Bruges because I told her to." Sherlock repeated, his voice as smooth and cold as ice.

No, John had heard right.

Blood dripped onto the floor, on wet tiles and shards of shattered glass that made an abstract of two men, one bloodied and tense, the other desperate and still.

"Sherlock, what…I don't—I don't understand."

"When you arrived at the door to Mycroft's summer home, bloody, barely-alive, and in a state that I never desire to see you in again, you managed to say Mary's name before you passed out. I became suspicious, so I called her and discovered, among the many other things she said in her upset and panicked state, that she was under Mycroft's payroll. She told me that Mycroft had ordered her not to interfere with whatever happened to you. She told me it was because I had called him."

"You…_called_—?"

"Yes, I called him before you arrived because I was worried. It was the first time we had talked in nearly two years, since I called him in Shanghai for clean food. I asked him if he knew where you were, he said he didn't, and I told him to keep you in Bruges if he could, so you wouldn't run into any trouble. I called him out of a blind despondency to ask that he keep you secure, and he took that to mean that as long as you didn't physically leave Bruges then anything could happen to you inside and he wouldn't stop it."

"What—what else did Mary tell you?"

"Just now? Everything that had happened since I left you, and not just in Bruges. Everything since the day you began working for the agency. Every assignment you've had, every talk the two of you've had in the café I believe is called The Drop-Off, every city you've been to, which, coincidentally, we tended to occupy at the same time and remained unaware of each other. I believe that, through information supplied by Mycroft, Mary took it upon herself to assign you cases that correlated with wherever I was at the time in the hopes that we might run into each other."

"How…how did he know where you were?"

"Mycroft is Mycroft. He will always meddle where he is unwanted, and he is annoyingly effective."

"Annoyingly effective?" John repeated indignantly as he spun around. Sherlock was almost cowed by the anger in his face. Almost, but he knew John wouldn't hurt him. "_Annoyingly effective_? Your brother _drugged_ me for three years with pieces of fucking _gum_, let me kill dozens of people, locked me in a medical facility in_ Russia_, had me _tortured_, and you call that _annoyingly effective_?" John scoffed. "And what's more is that you _knew_ and you didn't do anything." His face fell. "You didn't do anything, and you knew what they were doing to me."

"I didn't know at the time." Sherlock corrected as John stumbled to the sink to wash the blood off his arm. "I knew later, after the fact—"

"But you had your suspicions, didn't you?"

"I was considering your feelings on the matter, John. I did not think you would care much for my investigating your close friend."

"For fuck's sake, Sherlock!" John said exasperatedly, turning the water higher. Sherlock did not miss his wince as the steaming water hit him.

John pushed his sleeve farther up to avoid the water and it was then that Sherlock noticed the faint rash on John's arm. It was then that Sherlock began to piece it all together. The significant change in his personality, the maladjusted behaviour, the constriction of the pupils…

John wasn't drunk, but he wasn't sober either. Sherlock had rarely felt so incredibly _stupid_, so incredibly dense…he'd observed, but why hadn't he _seen_—

"John…what else did you take that the agency gave you?"

John didn't answer, watching the blood sluice off his arm in the water and disappear down the drain.

"John—"

"They're called...drivers." John said quietly, sounding as if he was about to be sick. "The agency gives them to clippers—people like me—as a bribe or complimentary...or whatever. It's an opioid cocktail in pill form. I took my first one a month after I started working and had insomnia and roaming hallucinations for half a week...so I never touched them again. I just took my second one an hour ago...after I saw you with Mary. I thought maybe you were in on something together. I thought—well, I don't know what I thought, but it wasn't anything good…" John trailed off in a hysterical fit of giggles.

Sherlock shut his eyes.

"You haven't developed an addiction, then?" He asked quietly.

"No."

"That's good."

"You're one to talk." John scoffed, taking his arm out of Sherlock's hand as he attempted to walk away. He managed to wobble a few steps before his knees collapsed out from under him. Sherlock caught him before he hit the ground.

"I speak from experience, John." Sherlock said softly as he hauled him to his feet.

The departure alarm rang out through the station as he dragged John out of the bathroom, trying to look wholly inconspicuous and partially failing. It was hard to carry a drugged hitman-slash-army doctor through a train station without earning a few glances, but the crowd was relatively large and Sherlock had no trouble getting them onto their train and into an empty carriage.

He hastily threw their things onto the other bench and collapsed into the seat, resting John's head on his lap just as they had been not two hours ago, except everything had changed. How? How could it just reverse so quickly?

As the train began to leave, as Sherlock glimpsed a flash of Mary's face, half-hidden in shadow, as the two of them headed onwards with John passed out, exhausted from his drug-induced meltdown, his mind raced.

* * *

><p>John was awake when Sherlock opened his eyes again a few hours later, sitting across from him.<p>

"I can't sleep." He said quietly, squinting into the bright sunlight. "It's a side-effect of the driver."

"Well you took it against your better judgment—" Sherlock began and John felt his anger rise.

"And whose fault was that?" He snapped.

John recognised the hypocrisy of his statement then chose not to address it, feeling that it sounded much more guilt-inducing if he blamed it wholly on Sherlock. Except it_ had_ been John's decision, albeit driven by Sherlock's actions. After he had come to, he had felt a little contrite about leaving the detective to carry him through a train station alone before he remembered that some part of him had wanted that, to see Sherlock panicked and worried, if only to see some sort of emotion cross that solemn alabaster face.

Sherlock shut his eyes. "John, let me explain—"

"There's no need, Sherlock. I know you, remember? Was it an experiment? I bet that was it. You wanted to see how far you could go without me finding out, right? I was just the little mouse in the maze."

He wished John would yell at him, hit him, make him hurt for what he had done, but there was no anger in his voice, just broken glass, hollow of what it once contained.

"John, please."

John looked at him, his eyes heavy and dark with fatigue, looking skeletal shaded against the light pouring in through the window. Scenery as happy as the fields they sped through shouldn't witness the misery that was briefly passing by it.

"You said that Mycroft didn't stop them from taking me in Bruges until he realised I was no longer there, right?"

"Yes."

"So he wasn't the one who tortured me?"

"No. I'm afraid we don't know who."

John scoffed. "That's a shame…because I do."

"You do?" Sherlock sat up, his interest edging higher. "Who? Is it someone working under Moriarty? Is it Moran? Someone else? Where can we find them? I have a contact as far away as Reykjavik if we need them…"

He trailed off as John stared at him blankly, his mouth slightly open and twisted in a frown as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Do you think you could at least give me 24 hours to recover from the simultaneous collapse of my trust in you and my subsequent drugged stupor before I answer?"

Sherlock let himself fall back, slumping against the seat. "Yes." He answered numbly. He hadn't fully registered, hadn't really considered just how far John's faith had fallen.

"Just…" John sighed, rubbing his eyes. "I need to be alone right now, Sherlock, alright? I just need to be alone, where I can be in control and no one can treat me like a puppet so I can come to my own conclusions. Let me go to my mind palace." John grinned bitterly. "Oh, sorry, I forgot it's not a palace, it's more like a lean-to isn't it? Someone of my intelligence can't be capable of such _brilliant_ buildings."

Sherlock turned from where he picked up his discarded scarf. "John, I never thought your intelligence was lagging—"

"I can't deal with this right now Sherlock…" John said quietly. "I can't deal with _you_." He added, his eyes heavy with sadness. "Maybe I was wrong." He muttered.

"Wrong about what?"

John didn't answer, his eyes fixed on the opposite seat.

"John, you think you were wrong about what, exactly?"

"Us." He murmured softly.

Sherlock took a step back, his omniscient eyes taking in everything; John's hunched posture as if he wanted to collapse in on himself, the emptiness of his voice, the darkness in his eyes, the sudden twitch in his leg, everything. He knew in that moment that he had done irreparable harm to the person he loved most and who loved him and he knew in that moment that the one seemingly insignificant breath he had blown all the way back in Bruges had hit them both like a gale-force wind and sent their house of cards crashing down.

And it was all his fault.

He did as John asked him and left, leaving John to his doubts, leaving him to simmer in Sherlock's unintentional quasi-betrayal, in his deceit and the fact that, once more, John had been lied to, had been used, by someone he trusted.

It was all his fault.

* * *

><p><strong>As usual, thank you to everyone and their kind, amazingly fantastic reviews! I didn't mean to make this chapter longer than what I typically do, but you guys win either way!<strong>


	24. the consequences of lying

"Things aren't working out like they're supposed to,

but at least they're working out.

If you ask yourself if anything is meaningful,

you'll find that everything is, no doubt."

_Stay This Way_ - Peter Bjorn and John

**(A brilliant song that holds a lot of credit for inspiring this story)**

* * *

><p>He was doing it again.<p>

He was smoking.

He hadn't smoked in over a hundred days. He'd lit a cigarette in Damüls but hadn't had the heart or time to smoke it, not with John's voice chastising him in his head. He'd stubbed it out before meeting his contact, knowing it wouldn't be what John wanted for him. It had been his way of appeasing the restless darkness that was Non-John, the space that John would have occupied if he had trusted him, if he'd told him about Moriarty and St. Bart's and not kept it to himself so he could finally relish the feeling of winning and knowing he alone had done it. Instead he had lost everything.

He hadn't paid much attention to the unused cigarette pack. Not since John's last birthday, when he'd been deciding on whether to call anonymously or not and subsequently worked himself into an agitated state before lighting a cigarette and then getting into a very heated argument with the landlady over his right to smoke inside. He'd thought that it was the least of her concerns considering the opium den two floors above and three rooms to the left that he told her of in so many words. He hadn't made many friends that day, but that was because his Mandarin was limited and he had been focusing all his attention on the only friend that he deemed deserved enough of it.

Sherlock sighed, exhaling smoke into the rushing wind from his isolated spot in the back of the train. Apparently they had been fortunate enough to book one of the last trains that still had an open air carriage and it was, of course, bound for Sarajevo.

The capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina wasn't doing itself any favours in Sherlock's opinion. He doubted it would bother to differentiate itself from Novgorod or Moscow or Minsk. The post-Stalinist siblings tended to resemble one another in more than one way. The iron curtain had tried so hard at conforming them all into one in the darkness it cocooned them in.

But his thoughts were not on Sarajevo or that it was home to the boy with the spider scar or what fate possibly waited for him there or even the cigarette in his hand, as comforting as it was.

His thoughts were three carriages away, in the fourth compartment, on the seat on the left (providing that John hadn't moved).

* * *

><p>John hadn't moved.<p>

He'd drifted in and out of dark, murky, shimmering dreams that felt like he was floating in the boiling sludge of gaseous stars, adrift in the mud and muck of the universe before he'd finally surfaced out of the driver's sphere of influence and the fog lifted from his head.

He'd known better than this. He'd known _he_ was better than this. He'd certainly chastised Sherlock for less.

John groaned at the thought. Of all the ideas he'd ever had, taking the driver was one of the worst. It had made him think things, awful things, things he'd never in his right mind consider much less accuse Sherlock of. What had he said? That Sherlock and Mary were working together to organise a sneak attack on him? If nothing else, he'd certainly implied it.

John groaned. He didn't think he'd ever touch the drivers again if this was what they led to.

Still, he couldn't staunch the acidic hurt that dripped itself through his body. Being used by someone unexpected stung his pride on its own (however unexpected Mycroft could truly be, John couldn't say), but it was a superficial wound when compared to being lied to and used in that order by someone he loved.

He'd learned his lesson with the agency, but he hadn't even begun to wrap his head around his and Sherlock's situation.

The one thought that kept him from losing all of his faith in Sherlock was the fact that he had done everything with good intentions, which was something he could not say with Mycroft, much less the agency. That one tether, however thin it was, kept his trust in Sherlock intact.

There were so many things he wanted answered. If Sherlock knew of Mary's employment, if John was just learning it, then what else hadn't he been told? What else had Sherlock discovered and hidden from him?

_She didn't leave you. Mycroft had her removed._

But—wait—later, when John had been smashing glass like a petulant child in the middle of a tantrum, Sherlock had stopped him by saying something, something important. What was it that he said?

_Mary left Bruges because I told her to._

John opened his eyes.

Why hadn't he realised that Sherlock hadn't told him the truth? At least not fully…he must've hoped John was too intoxicated to know the difference between the two facts, but surely he'd known that John would remember, surely he'd known that John was smart enough to tell the difference…

* * *

><p>John shut the door to the carriage quietly. Sherlock didn't turn around but John knew he'd heard him.<p>

"You shouldn't be doing that." John said, eyeing the lit cigarette caught between Sherlock's long fingers.

"It's not the worst of what I'd considered doing." Sherlock's gaze briefly darted over his shoulder then back away, as if he was looking at something he knew he shouldn't be. "I thought you wanted to be alone."

"Yeah, I thought I did too."

"What changed?"

"Well, I'm not high anymore, so that changes things a bit."

"Right, of course." Sherlock took another drag, if only because he didn't know what else he should say. What else he _could_ say that wouldn't destroy the remains of their situation.

"I never thanked you." John said quietly. "For carrying me to the train." He added at Sherlock's blank reaction.

"You're…welcome." Sherlock sighed, exhaling a breath of smoke. "If it had been me I know you wouldn't have left me there. However, considering your present state that doesn't seem too impossible to imagine now."

"Sherlock—" John groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I don't think you can play the victim in this situation."

"I know very well that I can't and I'm trying not to undermine your suffering or justify any that I may have experience. I'm simply stating that, with your newfound mistrust of me, leaving me in the bathroom doesn't seem so impossible if it were to happen in the future—"

"I'm sure you've realised that I said a lot of things yesterday that I did and didn't mean. It tends to happen when you're not in your right mind."

"Are they things you might wish to divulge to me?"

There was something in his tone, something cold and metallic and dark, that made John frown at him for a moment.

"Well, for one, I didn't mean what I said about your family's slogan."

"Ah, yes. 'The Holmes Brothers: helping the helpless, but only if it's convenient.'" Sherlock repeated, taking another drag. "I actually thought that one was quite accurate."

"For Mycroft, maybe."

"He should have it engraved on the crest." Sherlock said dryly.

They both knew what was coming, what they'd have to address if any progress was to be made, but how to start? How to rectify mistakes that had been made with the purest of intentions that had been twisted in a dark hour?

"Sherlock," John began quietly. "Why did you lie to me?"

"To which lie are you referring?" Sherlock asked calmly, his eyes still on the horizon.

John sighed but it was lost in the wind.

"You're not doing yourself any favours you know."

"I know, but in order for me to properly redeem myself in your eyes I have to rectify any past errs I've made, and I have to start somewhere." Another drag, like it was a lifeline. "To which lie are you referring?" He repeated.

"You told me that Mycroft removed Mary from the Kremlin. Then you said that you told her to. Which was it?"

"As I said before, it was a combination. I called Mycroft to inquire if he could keep you in Bruges. He acquiesced, although he also misunderstood my request to mean that, so long as you remained in Bruges, anything could happen to you."

"So he just _let_ me be kidnapped, then?" John asked with a wave of his hand. "Just like that?"

"Just like that." Sherlock repeated softly, the cold dark metal back in his voice. "You shouldn't worry about going after him. I already plan to."

"No."

Sherlock turned to look at John for the first time. The wind whipped his ash-blonde hair back, leaving all Sherlock's focus on his face, solemn and resolute; his unwavering blue eyes were the color of the clear sky above them.

"No?"

"No. I don't want you to take revenge on him for me."

"I suppose this is for some noble and lofty reason, then." Sherlock said, stubbing out his cigarette.

"No." John shook his head. "It's not."

"It's not?"

"You're a man, Sherlock, not a parrot." John said, and it took a moment for Sherlock to realize he was teasing him. So he was teasing now. A good start on John's road to trusting him again.

"Why?"

"I don't want you to go after him for me because he's not the one who—did this to me." John said, stiffly indicating his back.

"Then what do you want to do?"

John stared at him a moment, the wind sending his hair flying around his face. Sherlock's dark curls barely waved in the breeze.

"You know," He said, straightening up against the wind. "If we were in the other's place right now, I don't think you'd tell me what you were really planning."

"I would now."

"Why?" John frowned. "Why now? Because you learned I don't care much for being lied to? Because you learned it's not a good thing to hide important information from people who care about you?"

"No, I know the consequences of lying, John."

"Then why—" John swallowed, his voice hoarse. "Why did you lie to me? How do I know you're not lying to me now or that you won't later on?"

Sherlock stared at him a moment. The crease in John's brow was concern. The curve of his mouth was hurt. The darkness in his eyes was doubt.

How could he begin to change all those things?

"Because I love you." He said quietly as he stared at John. "Because I know you love me too."

_Don't say you don't. Please don't say you've changed your mind._

John leaned on the railing again, shutting his eyes to the wind as he exhaled heavily.

"You can't think that saying those words can solve everything, Sherlock…" He said before opening his eyes again. "You know, before, in the bathroom, I wasn't lying or being overdramatic or anything." John said quietly, looking out at the scenery or the rusted iron railing or anything but Sherlock. "When I said that…when I said maybe I was wrong about us."

One thought and one thought alone managed to force itself into that fresh empty void that Sherlock could only assume was shock. It reminded him of red hot metal that had been dropped in icy water, the way it felt like he'd been frozen suddenly into a different, immobile state.

_You've changed your mind._

John managed to bring his eyes up to Sherlock, who looked as if he'd been gutted of everything, like every important organ and impulse and thought that he'd ever had suddenly left him, casting his whole soul out to drown alone in open water.

"No, I do love you, Sherlock, I do. If you ever doubt anything in your whole life you should skip right over that because I will always love you, but you've just—fuck—" He laughed emptily. "You just don't know the _damage _you can cause sometimes. And that's the worst part. Whenever your plans are involved, I'm already being set up to fall."

"I'm sorry, John." Sherlock exhaled softly. John believed that, if Sherlock had ever meant anything he said, he meant this. "Truly, I am."

"How many times am I going to hear that?" John asked quietly, as if it hurt him to voice these thoughts, these things he thought at night while he waited for Sherlock to return only to wake up alone the next day. "How many times are your brilliant plans going to hurt me in the process? How many times are you not going to consider how I feel about whatever it is that you're planning and that maybe that I want to help you, not hinder you?"

"I never thought that, John. Never. Not about you."

"Then what did you think? You never tell me anything, and I don't just mean with St. Bart's or the time you were away. I mean _anything_. How can you ever trust me if you don't let me in?"

"But I do, John or…I'm trying to. I don't want to proclaim that you knew what you were signing up for when you became involved with me both platonically and emotionally, but I've never hidden anything about myself from you, and I don't plan to either. I've laid everything out before you."

"Just the bare minimum, Sherlock. Just the essentials. I know that you've never trusted anyone before much less loved anybody, but by saying that you love me, it means that you trust me and right now it doesn't seem like you do, so what conclusions am I supposed to come to?"

"That, by the default of my perceived distrust of you, I don't love you."

"Yes." John said, caught in an exhale as if he were trying to hold it back and it slipped past his throat.

"But I do love you."

"Then you'll have to trust me. From here on out, we're in this together. That means no secrets."

"None."

"And no withholding information. No hiding plans from me, no matter how important."

Sherlock nodded. "If you feel like I am trespassing, you have the full ability to leave me and never look back."

"See," John smiled. "I already told you, Sherlock. I'll never leave you."

Sherlock felt a genuine smile appear on his face.

He would let him in, if it meant forgiveness. If it meant being loved completely and wholly. It scared him, to let John into places that no one had been into, into locked rooms with stale air and rusted locks.

But John was worth it.

* * *

><p><strong>SHAMELESS PLUG: <strong>**I have another Johnlock story (_Come Back_) and I'm contemplating making it a series. Mind telling me your thoughts?**


	25. red arrows

_"i watched you as you slept_

_red arrows fell around us_

_and before the sea came in_

_i__ knew you were the one _

_we are turning in the circle of the sun _

_we are falling into our new forms _

_i feel light i feel sent_

_catch me racing _

_across the skyline"_

"Red Arrows (John)" - Gem Club

**For real though, if you heed nothing else I say, _please_ go look up Gem Club. They're astoundingly beautiful and they set just the right mood for so many chapters of this story.**

**This chapter is for FuseAction because of her agreement to take me on as a smut-padowan. Consider this a test of the waters.**

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><p>John didn't quite understand how it happened.<p>

They'd gotten to Sarajevo just fine, in a comfortable yet slightly wound tension. Both were too uncertain of how to proceed although they knew and anticipated what it would lead to. It couldn't be said, however, that they hadn't _tried_.

John had offered a quiet kiss in the back of that open-air compartment but didn't like the smoky taste of Sherlock's mouth, still reeking of cigarette. Later, Sherlock had countered with a sudden nuzzling of John's neck as he'd napped, but John had woken with a start, sending a fist into Sherlock's face as he shouted something about 'don't—not there' which degenerated into a mumbled apology about knives and boilers. John had later tried to apologise, although they both knew who was at fault, but Sherlock didn't have the heart to try any other alternative approach.

Then, they'd arrived at their hotel, an unremarkable concrete inn with a rickety elevator and even more untrustworthy stairs. Yet they both agreed it was perfect since the last thing they wanted to do was attract attention. John trusted Sherlock's knowledge of inconspicuous residences since he had seemingly become a connoisseur of them during his global trek.

After a briefly polite explanation to a very baffled but kind lady at the front desk in broken Serbian about how they would be very alright with one bed, they entered the elevator. John thought he'd had a heart attack judging by the way his heart shot into his oesophagus as the lift started, thundering to life with a sound like cannon fire. Sherlock, however, was unmoved.

Their ride was silent, at least until they got to their floor.

One moment they were standing side by side in the lift, in their still silence as they rode upwards, and then, as the doors opened as the elevator jumped to a stop, Sherlock looked at John like he had made up his mind about something, grabbed the curve of John's jaw and pulled him into one of the most beautiful kisses of either of their lives.

John had never thought before to call a kiss beautiful. There were some that had been good or fantastic even, but this, _this_, was beautiful. The stars-behind-your-eyes, wipe-all-conscious-thought-from-your head kind of beautiful, like looking into the night sky and trying to comprehend your own mortality and insignificance. Except John felt quite significant at the moment.

The lift dinged, as if it was irately reminding them that it had other things to do than serve as their hormonally-charged, private broom closet. With something that sounded like a groan, Sherlock pulled John out and into the hall, but didn't anticipate that John, in his enthusiasm, would push back, sending Sherlock into the wall behind them. The hall was silent save for the sound of their gravid kisses and heavy breathing.

The click of a key. The opening and shutting of a door, and John found himself pressed in the cool darkness between Sherlock and the door.

"Don't think—" His words were broken off by a kiss. "That this—" And another. "Solves everything."

Sherlock drew away as John heard his coat hit the floor, his cheeks visibly flushed in the darkness as he stared down, his head resting on John's.

"I don't."

"Well…alright, then. Good." John finished lamely, the fire leaving his argument as Sherlock kissed the pulse point right in the soft underside of his jaw, next to an assortment of healing knife marks that now looked like someone had tried to connect a constellation.

"However, I anticipate that it might solve a few things—" Sherlock began, but was cut off as John took his bottom lip between his teeth and bit softly, enough to sting but not enough to hurt. The noise that escaped him seemed to John to be god-like, some breath infused with sunlight and warmth muttered from Apollo to Hyacinth, something that was certainly not human, not even remotely close—

The bed was easy to find considering it was the largest piece of furniture in the room. Sherlock soon found his back pressed against it, John looming over him, experiencing one of the rarer advantages of catching Sherlock off-guard. He managed to get his jumper off before crawling over Sherlock, burying his hands in that dark mass of curls as he drew Sherlock's face upwards into a warm kiss that pulsed with love and something tender that felt like blood rushing back into a constricted muscle.

"John…" Sherlock muttered against his kisses as John tilted his head back to look at him.

"Hm?"

Christ, those heavy-lidded eyes would be the death of him. Sherlock swallowed harshly.

"I am…nervous."

John laughed. "Nervous? You?"

Sherlock pursed his lips. "I thought that you would notice without my pointing it out."

John leaned back on his heels.

"Sherlock, we don't have to—I mean, if you're not ready—"

John stared silently down into the gaze that looked up at him, into unsure eyes that already gave him his answer. He exhaled softly, and a kind smile, love glowing from every curve, was sent down to the man beneath him, washing away all Sherlock's fears of John's anger at his timidity, at his decreasingly decimal confidence that only appeared with the man above him _when_ he was above him. Sherlock the Virgin, eager to give it up but too afraid to lose it.

"I don't want you to think that you have to prove anything to me." John said gently.

"I don't." Sherlock answered in a quiet breath. Why was it that his affections felt they could fully manifest themselves on a goddamn _train_, but put them both in an acceptable bed that they turned on their tails and ran for all they were worth? He wanted this, he had thought of nothing _but_ this to keep himself sane during his isolated exile, so why—_why—_ couldn't he act on it?

He let out an unmitigated sigh, letting his head fall onto John's chest.

"Are you sure about that?" John asked.

"Can't I just bloody shag you?" Sherlock groaned into John's collar bone and John laughed.

"Not if you're not certain that's what you want…but I certainly wouldn't be complaining."

"It_ is_ what I want. It is. I don't think I've ever wanted anything more, but—" He stopped, moving his face to rest in the negative space between John's neck and shoulder as he wrapped his arms around John's waist. "But I want this too."

John smiled, shutting his eyes as he draped an arm behind Sherlock's neck, his other hand reaching down to let it meet Sherlock's as their fingers intertwined.

"So do I." He said, letting his head fall against Sherlock's. "So do I."

* * *

><p>Sherlock woke to the sound of John's voice. He didn't know how much time had passed, but judging by the darkness of the room, not more than an hour.<p>

"They took me somewhere dark…somewhere hot." John muttered.

Sherlock knew instantly what he was talking about, as well as that this was not the incoherent babble of a dream nor the dark dregs of a nightmare. He felt a tinge of jealousy for all the wrong reasons. He had been the one who was going to let John in first, but John, being that brave man that he was, being the soldier, he was beating him to it. But Sherlock's envy passed like dirt swept up in wind as John continued.

"It felt like I was inside a boiler. I guess they wanted me to sweat first, literally and metaphorically." John said quietly. He wasn't sure if Sherlock was awake or not, but it didn't matter. The words were coming out regardless, if only so he could confirm to the fitfully sleeping world what had happened to him, if only so he could whisper it into the currents of time and it could be taken as record instead of sitting as standing water inside of him, slowing tainting itself to stagnation.

He paused, almost expected sweat to start pouring out of him like it was on that night that seemed so long ago but was only a little over a week.

"They started with the whip. I still feel it when I wake up, even though most of the damage is healed over. I—right afterwards, it felt like Afghanistan again, after I'd been shot. I would wake up thinking that I'd passed out during the torture and they'd woken me up. That's why I hit you on the train. I...well, I thought you'd noticed, but then why would you find something you weren't looking for? I understand why you didn't. It's not how you work. Not how you think, either. I think your knowledge of the solar system is example enough." He chuckled, but it felt hollow, a pulse of sound filling the empty gap before he returned to that sharp burning, the crack snapping in the boiling air.

"Anyways," He felt his heart darken, the memory casting shade over it. "I don't know how long they went at it, but it must have been half an hour, maybe more. I tried to use some of the things the army taught me, mainly to avoid going into shock, but mostly just so I had something to focus on other than the pain. After the first ten minutes I couldn't feel any of it and I think they realised it, so they stopped…switched to the knife. Cut the IOU behind my ear, cut some other things too…my legs, the inside of my thighs—the outside too—but they were careful not to catch an artery, which I remember thinking was amusing at the time since I thought they were going to kill me at the end. I thought that right up until they cut me down and dumped me in someone's car. That whole ride I thought they were taking me to some godforsaken patch of earth with my grave dug in it. That whole ride I—" John cut off, his hand clenching and unclenching over Sherlock's shoulder. "I thought of you. Just you. I wanted you to be the last thing I thought of. It was nothing in particular, really, just whatever happened to come up that I could remember. You playing the violin or yelling at the crap telly or talking yourself into narcoleptic state after days of sleep deprivation…" John chuckled, and he meant it this time. "You know, for a doctor I never did you much good, did I?"

Sherlock didn't answer. John paused, listening to his steady breathing.

"Well, the car stopped and someone dragged me out, into another car. I didn't think much other than 'okay, they're not going to kill me yet'. If they were, who would change cars instead of just taking me to some abandon field and pull the coup de grace? By that point I knew we were heading east and I remember thinking that at least they were taking me closer to where you were, at least I could die close to you. I blacked out. Woke up a few hours later with what might have been the worst headache I've ever had. It reminded me of this technique I heard the insurgents in Afghanistan use. It's called 'La Corona' in Spanish and in Arabic the 'Hadeed Tajh'. Both mean 'Iron Crown', but I'm sure it's called something else too. The thing about Third World countries is that their torture tends to share similarities. It's crude, it's brutal, and it's effective. But with the Iron Crown—or whatever name it's going by—you're tied to a chair and put out into the sun with a wet rope knotted around your head, which isn't a problem until the water begins to evaporate from it and it tightens and in the pain you forget where you are, what your name is, if you have family…I didn't want to forget anything, I didn't want to forget you or what you mean to me or who I was, but I—but it felt like I was dying, Sherlock…and in all honesty I probably was. Multiple lacerations, dehydration, psychological torture…it can do a number on someone. So I tried to remember, tried to hold onto things that I didn't want to lose. Most of the stuff concerned you, but I thought about my mum and dad and Molly and Lestrade and even some of the Yarders too. I didn't want to overlook anything. And then—" John sighed. "Then I was at the door and you were catching me and I knew that I'd made it back to you and I could die happy. But I didn't, did I? You and Mikheia saved my life…"

There was silence, still, cool, soft silence like the air that billows out from sheets when they're falling over a bed.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Sherlock's voice came quietly, an inquiring whisper proving he'd been awake and listening.

"Would_ you_ have told me?" John asked with a hint of empty amusement. He didn't seem surprised that Sherlock was awake, much less that he had heard everything he'd said. On some level, he'd wanted him to.

Sherlock's silence was answer enough.

He turned his head, pressing it flush against John's stomach.

"I can't lose you, John." Sherlock said and John could feel him shut his eyes. "I can't."

Sherlock felt a small tremor of laughter ripple underneath his ear and lifted his head to see John smiling at him.

"That's a little selfish," John bent down and accentuated the word with a kiss. "Don't you think?"

"_Selfish_…" Sherlock scoffed, laying his head back down. His hands began idly tracing patterns on John's shirt. "I'm no different from you or the rest of the human race when it comes to selfishness. Everyone wants to hold on to the people they love. Everyone is selfish."

"I thought you weren't made in that mould?"

Sherlock looked up at him again, considering his words.

"Only with you do I change my shape. Only with you does metamorphosis occur."

John stared down at him, smiling with warm eyes. Sherlock felt like when he was a child coming home in the evening from an experiment in the forest and finding that the light out back was still on for him, even though he thought it wouldn't be.

"I suppose this is the part, then, where you sprout wings and fly away from me?" John asked, his hand softly travelling through Sherlock's hair belying his quiet admittance of his deepest, darkest fear.

"If I try to leave you, you may as well just crush me under your foot because it's not going to happen ever again."

"You're too pretty to crush…I think I'd pin you to a board instead. Then at least I could admire your superficial qualities every day."

Sherlock felt himself smile against John as his head gently rose and fell with every breath John took. Combined with his hand, gentle and soothing in Sherlock's curls, Sherlock briefly considered the fact that he may have finally found the cure to his persistent insomnia before he fell asleep, thinking that, of all the places on the Earth, there was nowhere else he'd rather be.


	26. the white hot heat

"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

- _[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]_ - ee Cummings

**For FuseAction, even though freaking Tumblr deleted your message with your email in it. Papa Karp's got a conspiracy going on, I swear it.**

* * *

><p>Sarajevo slept into the dawn.<p>

The watery light of morning could barely drag its fingers on the floor, blocked by the thick curtains of a sparsely furnished room as the sun pulled itself from the foggy dregs of night, opening its great eye upon its sleeping side of the world.

Two figures lay in the greyness, corporal shadows in the pre-dawn.

"Why?" Sherlock asked quietly into the lightening shades of darkness.

"Why what?"

They lay together, Sherlock's head tucked under John's, John's hand still tangling itself in Sherlock's hair like he couldn't bring himself to leave it.

"Why haven't you left me?"

John shut his eyes.

"I told you I wouldn't."

"But you're so much better than me, John. You're so…_good_."

"Well I suppose I am the paradigm of the better man in this relationship." John joked and Sherlock's eye roll was not lost on him even though he couldn't see it.

"It's quite a cumbrous title, to be honest."

"I'll make you a sash and you can strut about announcing it to the world."

"I don't _strut_. That's something you'd do, you big peacock."

"Peacock?" Sherlock lifted his head. "Why a peacock?"

"Haven't you noticed how you always draw everyone's attention when you enter a room? It's like you spread these great loud feathers and people have no other option but to look your way. It's either your beauty or your formidability, I can't decide which. Maybe both."

"Well by that account you shouldn't be surprised if I start sprouting feathers."

"Honestly, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if you were an extra-terrestrial."

"What made you assume I was an alien?"

"Nothing in particular..." John started. "I suppose it was an amalgamation. You have this gift, Sherlock, and sometimes I really think it's unworldly. I mean, how you can just see people but at the same time you _see_ them—who they really are—it's…it's amazing."

For a moment Sherlock shut his eyes. Didn't say anything. Just breathed through John's shirt into his shoulder.

"After all this time…" He finally muttered into the knoll of John's scar.

"What?"

"After all this time, you're still amazed by me, by the things I do, by who I am…it's like you're never bored with me."

"I could use a variety and plethora of words to describe you, but _boring_ will never be one of them."

Silence lapsed over them like wave washing onto sand, calm and easy.

"I've never been religious, John." Sherlock said.

"No, I can't say you have."

"But…but if I was, if I had anyone to thank for you, I would. Every day. I'd thank them for you. Although, since that's quite counterproductive to my current viewpoints, I'll just have to abide by thanking you for you."

"Or my parents, since I am a by-product of the two—"

"Can't you just enjoy the compliment without your constant modesty getting in the way?" Sherlock groaned, but John knew he wasn't truly annoyed. "I am very grateful for your presence in my life and I am trying to show you."

"See, you don't really need to, Sherlock. I already know. You've got your own little ways of showing me—"

Sherlock sat up suddenly, hovering over John with a mad frenzy in his eyes.

"But that's not _enough_, John. It's not enough."

John looked at him silently before he answered, unwaveringly calm and quiet, powerful in his certainty.

"Yes it is."

Sherlock found his throat tightening like someone was clenching it in their fist, like he couldn't breathe from the weight of it all.

For once, he didn't have anything to say.

He stared at John and John stared back and in that moment, he felt protected. He felt impenetrable, untouchable, _safe_, all from those steady blue eyes staring back at him.

He leaned forward, weight on his bent arms, and let his hands graze the edges of John's face before he drew in and took one breath—in and out—staring at John before he kissed him. It was whole and kind, a welcome, feeling to both like coming into the warmth from the cold and they knew what it meant, what actions could say that words couldn't.

Lazy kisses became harder, became forceful, became hot. Skin to shirt became skin to skin as what little clothes John was wearing melted off to settle into pools on the floor, Sherlock's own soon stripped from him and joining them. Hands drifted and grazed and grasped and pulled with rising insistency. Sherlock felt like his heart might burst, even though he knew the risk of that happening was impossibly high. Suddenly the room grew cold, his skin was too hot, his hair awkwardly stuck to his temples, he felt gangly...he was limbs, all limbs, tangled with John, and every part of him was in the way. Every part of him was too hot, was too bare, was too open, and John would sooner laugh at him than fuck him, and he certainly didn't deserve him in either scenario.

"John."

"Hm." John made a sound in the back of his throat as he nipped and kissed and let his hands slide wherever they cared to.

"I feel naked."

John drew back for a moment.

"You _are_ naked."

Sherlock's face, the lack of response, the _rawness_ that was so evident in his hands covering his chest as he clutched at his shoulders, in his crossed legs, in his eyes, told John everything he needed to know.

"Come here." John managed to say, and it sounded like coming home. Sherlock looked at him owlishly through large eyes and obeyed, climbing into his lap and letting the damp heat and heavy air churn between them. He draped his arms around John's neck as John splayed a hand over his back, moulding him into the cocoon of his embrace. "I won't hurt you." John muttered, kissing his shoulder. "I'll never hurt you."

"I know." Sherlock answered quietly into his hair.

There was a concentrated coldness that made his skin prickle, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Just...new. He knew John would have foreseen this, would have brought the necessary materials that Sherlock hadn't even begun to consider-

_Oh._

A heavy silence.

John groaned softly into Sherlock's shoulder, his teeth grazing the soft, thin salty skin.

Sherlock exhaled and shut his eyes.

_Beautiful_.

Like slipping into a warm bath after being out the snowstorm.

"Are you alright?"

"I highly doubt there's been any other instance in my life where I've been _more_ alright than this moment." Sherlock said calmly despite the prickling fire that had broken out underneath his skin. "Christ, it feels like I'm _moulting_."

"You big peacock." John laughed into his shoulder before he brought up his head, resting it on Sherlock's clavicle. "I'm going to move. Is that okay?"

"I will kill you if you don't, John, I swear—"

John pushed. The bone of their hips met, ground against each other, and sparked.

In that quiet darkness of pre-dawn, there was fire.

They let it wash over them, let it course through their veins and burn away the dirt and grime that had accumulated in their blood, clogged by loneliness. As it burned it left them hot and fresh like rain on summer pavement until steam began to rise off them and their bones turned to jelly. The fire settled into their hearts as it grew and pulsed, stoking the coals like a furnace until sweat was drawn from every pore and it felt like they were in a sauna and not some inconspicuous hotel room in an inconspicuous city in a conspicuous country, not knowing the fate that quiet city held in store for them.

The pulse quickened. Harder. Quicker. Deeper. Deeper. Striking the core of something Sherlock had ignored for years, for all his life since he could give it a name. A ragged gasp escaped him and he let out a shaking exhale.

It really did feel like he was moulting, like he was shedding his skin like some primordial snake peeling off its old skin that it had once thought fit so snugly but now realised it was constricting; it was suffocating him slowly and he hadn't even noticed. Hadn't cared. Not until now. Not until John had reached his hand out and begun to pick it off. How could he ever go back? He couldn't. Didn't want to. Not now.

His soul began to breathe again, basking in its revival.

John had rested his head on Sherlock's shoulder, his face buried in his neck as he muttered some breathless benediction against flush, damp skin. Sherlock's knuckles were white with strain as he gripped John's shoulders, breathless pants escaping him as John bit his collarbone.

It's all because of him. Your soldier. Your brave little thing. Your human being, keeping you tethered to him like a moon to the Earth.

John pushed and he pulled. John's exhale was his inhale, heavy and desperate as they grinded against each other, moved with each other like they should always have belonged that way and they were just now realising it.

Sherlock took John's face in his hands, those long fingers tracing around the lines of his face, holding his head in the wiry cage of Sherlock's fingers.

"_John_…John, look at me. Open your eyes. Please."

"Christ..." John gasped, his eyes half-lidded and muddled with brightness.

"No...just me." Sherlock tried to smile, but he was too consumed with that slow heat, with fascination at this man beneath him, in him, this man that was saving him and didn't even know it.

John tried to keep his eyes open and hold Sherlock's gaze, but it was harder in act than in theory. His heart was glowing metal, a white hot heat hammering away at it.

"Don't go away, you can't go away—" A gasp fell from Sherlock as the breath was forced out of him with a particularly rough thrust. "You can't go—" Fingers tightening on his shoulder. "You can't—" A messy kiss.

"_Sherlock_." John groaned, tightening his hand on Sherlock's hip, his nails digging into the soft skin.

John felt water drip onto his collarbone and he knew it wasn't sweat. Sherlock's desperate, shaking breaths weren't at the sensation either, as strong and beautiful as it was.

"Not going anywhere." John muttered, his lips grazing Sherlock's. "M'not going anywhere…"

Sherlock dug his long fingers through John's short hair, grazing his scalp, sending soft sparks trickling down his spine before coiling in their connection like electricity through copper wires that had been soldered together.

"I'm right here. I'm right here. I'm—"

Flashes of light, those brief glimpses of heaven, started to strobe.

They cut him off.


	27. the tar

"just your touch could cure my lonesome blood

you let go of everything you had

and everything got left here

waiting for what comes next

the state of things is tied to me

and I've been careless, I think too much

I want to lie still near you, I want to"

"Twin" – Gem Club

* * *

><p>Sherlock doesn't dream. It's a fact. He just <em>doesn't<em>.

So, when he does dream, he remembers. Or he likes to think he does. He has a list of them. His Dreams That He Remembers.

All five of them.

When he was six, he dreamed of murky water and old wrinkled eyes and steel and cold wind that burned straight through him and felt like sadness. The next day his father died. Sherlock didn't notice his absence until three days later, when he noticed the curtains were drawn and he saw his mother striding through empty halls swaddled in black. He still didn't know how he felt about it.

When he was eleven, he dreamed of bloodied, raw meat and a damp wetness and a strange smell like cabbage and parched throats and something-hot-but-not-burning. He woke up with wet sheets, quietly washed them, and never spoke of it again. He knew Mycroft had seen him, had gotten up to get a glass of water—though knowing Mycroft it was probably a midnight snack—but Mycroft hadn't said anything to imply he had. Sherlock hated all the things he owed him—it was like trying to count stars—and when he was younger ad full of impotent rage at his brother he would stare up at the night sky and he would hate those plasmatic spheres that stared back at him, like evidence of his debt, and he wanted to wipe them all off that pure black sky with his hand and just leave the darkness.

When he was 29 and had finally emerged out of a drugged seven year stupor that he liked to call Lost, he dreamed of heat and sweat and red-but-not-blood. Just red. He met Greg Lestrade four days later, walking in on him during a criminal investigation at a Tesco and saving him the time of figuring out the culprit before he directed him to the skip out back where a video surveillance tape was stashed, indicating a regular customer that liked to stop by at 2am and hold up the place.

When he was 35, he dreamed of a strange land, of fresh and salt water and sun and wind and John. He woke up in an unsettling, shaking pain that he thought was either love or indigestion. He didn't know what it truly was until he saw John three days later in that godforsaken church and he felt that pain again, right in the hollowed part of his chest that he could feel but not name. He knew what it was though. Everyone knew what it was, but it just didn't have a name, that insufferable hooking behind his navel and below his heart that seemed to pierce straight through him and send an icy shock through his limbs.

When he was 35, he dreamed of darkness that smelled like chlorine and sweet clots of blood and a John that was Not-John.

He had fallen asleep in John's arms, sated and happy but fearing that he had become rather spoiled now and knowing that he'd never fall asleep again if John wasn't there. He just knew.

John had sighed in utter contentment, but dried wind swept it away as Sherlock plummeted into a hollow, dry pit that undulated with darkness. Sherlock could taste the bitterness of blackberries bursting in his mouth, even though nothing sat on his tongue. Like clots of coagulating blood sitting in his mouth that he couldn't spit out. He took a deep breath and recoiled. Chlorine. That dizzyingly sharp, stinging, clear scent that was so like Moriarty's cologne to him.

Someone was with him in the dark and deep inside he knew it was John. He relaxed.

At least until Sherlock could see him.

John's skin was cracked and broken like old pavement, streaked through with a smouldering tarry blackness like the veins of a leaf held up to the light. This was Not-John, some shadow taking his form, but he looked like him, he smelled like him, he talked like him and it was hard—so _hard_—not to say it wasn't John.

"This is a turn up, isn't it Sherlock?" Not-John asked quietly, just as he had at that Pool, that fucking Pool, with explosives strapped to his chest and a madman's whisper in his ears. "What, no kiss hello?"

His smile was bloody. There was a shimmering darkness in his eyes like the shadows reflected off the Pool that night, that night he almost lost John before he had truly found him, that night he realised just how big that pyre was that his heart lay in, ready to be torched by Jim fucking Moriarty, and that night he knew just how much John Hamish Watson meant to him, how invaluable he was, how much of his love Sherlock had already invested in him and not even known it, not even realised...

"Who are you?"

"Captain _John Watson_." Not-John said it like it was obvious. "M.D." He added with a wet, red grin.

"No you're not."

"What do I have to do to prove it, then?" Not-John asked, holding out his hands. He took a step closer to Sherlock. "I took the darkness from you." He whispers into his ear quietly. "While you were busy with me inside you. Fucking you. I left and you didn't even notice. I went right into your heart and I found the darkness. I scooped it out—it was like tar—and I swallowed all of it down, all that I could cup in my hands until it was empty. I licked it off your veins and sucked on your tendons like they were sweets. I wanted to you to be clean. Pure and whole. Like white linen sheets. But I couldn't get the blood off."

He wiped at Sherlock's brow and his hand came away red. He looked confused, like the answer didn't fit the question. "I couldn't get the blood off."

John's face flashed like an interrupted transmission before he was back, his face smeared in blood, his blue eyes bright but blank, glowing through the translucent pale skin of his eyelids that were tinted a cold shivering white, like snow.

"You fell for me once." His eyes were so damn _blue_, like ice that hadn't thawed. "If I recall you looked quite like this, didn't you? You can do it again."

"NO! No, John, I can't, I _can't_, I don't want to—you're the start and end for me, my Alpha and Omega, I can't lose you, can't leave you—"

"Sometimes I sit and I think about what would happen if _I_ left you."

"No—"

"_Yes_." Not-John's voice was a hiss, a gush of steam. "And your face when I tell you that your darkness is poisoning me and I have to get away, away from you…sometimes you look like those dead fish hanging from hooks at the market, shocked that their end came quickly and they hadn't even realised it until they were flapping in the air. Other times you look like a devil, all slathered in shadow and blood—_my _blood, Sherlock, because we both know you'll kill me one day—and you'll rage and say I'm yours, just yours, no one else's, and you'll try to bite me and get me to stay but I'll still go out the door."

Sherlock said nothing but his head twitched as if he was trying to deflect the idea.

"What? You think that won't happen? You think you won't kill me? I know you will, Sherlock. You know you will. You already did, once, didn't you? But you only took my heart then. My brain still worked. And look what I did without you. Look at what I accomplished without you." John stepped back, a mad grin on his face, he was _proud _of himself. "John Watson, assassin extraordinaire! He'll do the job for you, but only if you pay well."

Not-John looked at him with his chlorine eyes and his utterly cracked smile grew.

"Oh don't look at me like that Sherlock! What did you expect? That I'd just sit and twiddle my thumbs and reheat your tea every time it got cold and do nothing but _wait_ for you?

This Not-John was a greater yet more terrible John. He was more beautiful in his fury, in his marble skin, but he was crueller, far crueller, far more brutally honest than His John.

"I waited for you." Sherlock said quietly.

"No, you _ran_ from me. You hid in all your little cubby holes around the world, hoping to find traces of someone that had already been buried. You left me alone in a flat I couldn't afford in a city I didn't love and I was dying every day, over and over again. London is a cancer in my bones without you there to blast the grime away with your radiation. And you do radiate Sherlock. I think if nothing else—if no other word can describe you—you radiate. Madness. Beauty. A chaotic poison that shines underneath your skin. You're a mad genius, Sherlock, and I'm just the lab rat."

Sherlock stared at him mutely.

"John," His voice was hoarse and thick. He paused. "Give me my darkness back."

Smiles. Flares of light that hurt his eyes. Tar seeps through Not-John's skin, but it doesn't spill over his face, it just…_stays_. Like the veined blackness of space between stars.

"Too late. I already took it from you. It's like anthrax. You can't get it again. I either pass it on or let it burn me from the inside out and there's nothing you can do but watch. You should've known better than to let me in since this is was it lead to."

Sherlock looked positively sick, pale and whitewashed and about to vomit.

"Haven't you noticed my silences? My surrenders to the pyre as I toss bits of myself in? Haven't you noticed The Emptiness, Sherlock?"

He could do nothing but stare at this Not-John that said all the things His John wouldn't and he could feel nothing but conceited disappointment because _of course_ he should have noticed, should have recognised that The Emptiness was what filled His John's eyes when he fired his gun and The Emptiness was what His John had used to survive his torture and The Emptiness was quicksand, was a vortex, a black hole, and it was going to swallow His John up until he turned into Not-John and Sherlock couldn't allow that to happen.

His John was everything—_everything_—in every sense of the word.

Not-John smirked, a stream of blood pulpy with bits of flesh spilling from his lips.

"The great Sherlock Holmes, undone by a Nobody that goes by the alias of John Hamish Watson." You know, sometimes I think I'll leave you while you sleep, so you wake up alone." Not-John gave a happy gasp and held up a hand as if to signal something. "Can you feel that?" Not-John breathed in his ear. "The coldness." He looked up, his face holding a terrifying wonder. "You know, I think I already have."

"_No_!"

Sherlock opened his eyes, breathing heavily. He touched his face, as if it was covered in the blackness, in that tarry deep space, but his hands were clean. He looked over beside him.

_No no no —_

John's space was empty. He ran his hand over it. Cooling, like night coming over hot pavement.

"John?"

His voice sounded more broken than he wanted it to. Hoarse and cracked, a low whisper.

The room was empty, nothing but the sparse furniture and the dawning morning to fill it. There was no trace of John, not of his clothes or bags or anything.

Empty empty empty—no he must be dreaming, still a dream, John can't be gone, he can't just _leave—_

A terrifying thought struck him.

It was as if John had never been here to begin with. It was as if last night had been a dream meant to tide him over before the nightmare struck, some island of peace and bliss that he knew—he _knew_—had been too good to be true.

_Facts. Stick to the facts. No unrealistic conclusions, they will get you nowhere._

He sprang up from the bed, completely naked as the day he was born, and snatched up his clothes from their various pools on the floor. As he typed a text out one-handed he attempted to drag his shirt on with the other.

_Where are you?_

_SH_

_If not dead or maimed, reply immediately._

_SH_

_Unless your fingers have been sliced off. However it should be stated that in theory you could still use the stubs to type._

_SH_

_Though I hope they haven't. Been cut off, I mean._

_SH_

_John. Answer please._

_SH_

He paced for a moment. He was seized by the sudden urge to throw something, to cause destruction.

_We do not have the finances to repay the hotel for the damage I am about to do to this room in my anxiety._

_SH_

_If you think my response to your absence is exaggerated, we're in a foreign fucking country, and neither of us knows the language._

_SH_

_I hope you're not dead. I hope with equal fervour that you are also not being a hero. I would much rather have you here._

_SH_

Sherlock was about to send his caution out the window and rush downstairs when the door opened and John came in, trying to balance two cups of coffee as he pulled his phone out.

"Bloody hell, Sherlock, _eight_ texts in five minutes? You couldn't wait a bit longer before you went off your rocker?"

Sherlock sighed in relief and sat on the bed. He thought his knees might have been shaking. And here John was, walking in like Sherlock hadn't just had a panic attack.

"Why didn't you answer me?"

"Well you try texting when both hands are carrying coffee." John smiled as he set down the cups, his smile so different from Not-John's, so unburdened and clean. He walked over to the bed and cupped Sherlock's face, kissing him on the forehead. "Sorry you had to wake up alone. Especially after last night—well—this morning. I thought you'd like waking up to coffee better than my morning breath."

Sherlock wrapped his arms around John's waist, burying his head into the soft curve of John's hip, wanting only to get closer closer closer, there was too much in the way, too much skin and muscle and blood and bone and why—_why —_couldn't he just burrow into some small corner inside John forever, why couldn't he just be surrounded by John always, why couldn't their morning be infinite—

"Sherlock," John's voice was softened concern as he tracked his hands through Sherlock's unkempt hair. "Will you let me in?"

A faint movement against his hip. Sherlock turned his head and exhaled heavily, shakily.

"I…had a bad dream." He said quietly. He felt a sudden rush of embarrassment at the sheer immaturity of it all. Nightmares were for children. He couldn't just go cry to John because of a bunch of fabricated images from his subconscious. That didn't mean, however, that he didn't trust John to let himself cry to him.

"Want to talk about it?"

"It was dark. It smelled like chlorine." Sherlock began. "But you were there, so it was alright. At least at first."

"What did I do?" John asked with all the seriousness as if someone had actually attacked Sherlock.

"It was you, but it wasn't. Looked like you at least. He—he told me that sometimes you think what it would be like to leave me one day. Or I would kill you. I don't know which would be worse—I think both would kill me—but I have to go with you leaving because then I would know you were alive."

"Sherlock." John said gently, firmly. "Sherlock, look at me." Sherlock let John's fingers guide his chin up. "I will never leave you. Ever. In any circumstance. And maybe you will kill me one day," John admitted, like he was saying there was a chance it would rain today, "But I'd rather it be you than anybody else."

Sherlock had nothing to say, looking up at John solemnly.

"Sherlock?"

His lip trembled and he buried his head in the softness of John's abdomen, his knuckles a strained white as his long fingers held onto John's hips like he was about to be swept out in a current and they were the only things anchoring him down.

"I'm still waiting for you to push me away." He said quietly. "To tell me what I did to you was terrible, was the worst thing anybody could do, that I'm damned in your eyes and you'll have no part of me."

"That's just the thing, Sherlock. I want all of you. All the good. All the bad. All of you."

John sleeping beside him, talking to him, kissing him, loving him, that was something he couldn't quite name but he could _feel_ it. God, could he feel it.

"There will never be anyone else. No one before you, and so will it be after." He said quietly and he felt John chuckle against his ear.

"God help me if I have to live without you again."

"I _won't_ live without you." Sherlock said. "I want no part of a life without you and, if given the chance and we can't escape it, I want to die with you. If you go…I go."

"What does that entail?" John asked softly, his hands smoothing over Sherlock's curls. "Dying together, I mean."

"I tell you that I love you and then we go together. Hand in hand, if possible."

"Together." John smiled. "I don't think I devote enough time to the habit of fantasizing about my death, but if I did I would want to be with you. Near you. As close to you as I could get." He let out a small laugh. "You know, most people don't talk about this in normal conversation."

"_People_." Sherlock scoffed. "People always let you down or leave."

"Surely you can't think that's all there is to it."

The look Sherlock gave him was more than enough proof that yes, he did think that.

"_I _didn't leave and I should hope I haven't let you down."

"You're not a good representation of people."

"And what—um—what does that mean exactly?"

"You're not like everyone else John. You're capable of evolution. Soldier, partner-in-crime, assassin. In times of crisis you become something greater than what you were before. You're unstoppable now."

"I wouldn't say that. Everyone's stoppable in one way or another. You've just got to find the weak spot in the wall."

Sherlock said nothing. He inhaled deeply.

John's smell was golden. Not like gold, nothing metallic and pretty and cold. That wasn't John. John was sunlight and soft blades of wheat waving in the wind and sand and heat and salty dry earth that wasn't parched but quietly alive. He smelled like dried sweat and a tangy bittersweetness like dark chocolate and—_Christ_—he smelled like Sherlock. That was the best of it all. He'd never expected to smell himself on John and the sheer wonder of it all felt like someone had dropped ten stones of lead on his chest from a great height.

They lay together on the bed, John on one side and Sherlock on the other, their coffee forgotten on the table.

"If we died together," Sherlock said slowly, hands clasped over his stomach. "I'd want to feel you one last time, anywhere I could get my hands on, at least before you were cold. I wouldn't want your warmth to go away."

He could hear John's breath hitch. Oh god, he said something wrong—

"Is death…is it a…fetish to you or something?" John asked tentatively, rolling over on his side to face him.

"Not quite a _fetish_—I'm not that depraved John—it's more a morbid fascination."

"Oh…well that's alright." John said, relaxing.

"It's alright?"

"Sure. Lots of people are fascinated with death. It's a very human thing, speculating your mortality."

"Would it bother you if my fascination wasn't alright?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if my fascination went beyond the realms of alright, if it was a crazy obsession, if I was completely barking mad about death and it got me off. Would that bother you?"

"You just said it wasn't a fetish."

"I could have been lying."

"No you weren't." John said surely and Sherlock looked to him for explanation. "Your mouth gets all firm when you lie and it looks like your nose tightens and almost pointier, if you can believe that. You get this—this _haughty_ look when you lie, like you're better than it all."

"Better than lying?"

"No, better than lowering yourself to lies for the benefit of other people." John frowned then. "Why do you ask if I'd be alright with a fake fetish?"

"Prurience." Sherlock shrugged.

John laughed. "Well if it were prurience I'd think we had a bigger problem on our hands." He looked at Sherlock a moment. "Want to know why I know you're lying?"

"You already told me."

"No, the other reason. It's quite…_logical_." John said, knowing just the word itself would bait Sherlock's interest.

"What gave me away then?" Sherlock asked and to John it sounded like he assumed he was humouring him.

"Because you know I would do anything for you and, if death really was a fetish to you, adding in your sexual attraction to me, logically that would mean I would stage my death for you—it would be simulated of course—before we have the hottest shag in the history of hot shags."

Sherlock had thought their shag this morning had been the hottest shag in the history of hot shags, but he also had nothing to compare it to. Something that would remedied shortly.

Then he imagined John dead. Even if he did fake it, even if he had the cruelness to manage it like Sherlock had with all the best intentions, that image sat in Sherlock's head like stagnant standing water. Blood on John's face. Blankness in his eyes. Stillness of his chest. Sherlock could feel cold fear prickle underneath his skin. He couldn't even bear the thought of it, even if John sprang up and shagged him senseless, the image of him dead would distract Sherlock the whole time. All the colour, any he might have had, had drained from his face and left him looking an ashy, whitewashed grey.

"See?" John said, breaking him out of his darkness. "That's why I know you're lying. You can't even stomach my _simulated_ death even if it was solely for your pleasure." John shrugged. "Thus, you were lying." He looked over at Sherlock, expecting to see a proud grin at his deduction, but instead Sherlock had thrown a pale arm over his eyes. "Sherlock? Are you alright?"

"I couldn't even endure the thought for two seconds." He muttered, dragging his arm away and looking over at John with a troubled expression. "How? How could you do it for three years?"

John pursed his lips and a sad smile crossed his face for a moment.

"Excessive denial, mostly. I told myself every morning that you would come through that door and every night I said 'Well, maybe tomorrow'." John looked away, a smile coming to his face. "And then you did. Well, not through the door, exactly, but you know what I mean."

"I knew it was you." Sherlock said. "In that church in Bruges. I knew it was you as soon as you spoke, I knew by your voice, by your silence, by your footsteps. I knew."

John was silent, as if he hadn't heard him, but Sherlock knew better.

"I thought you were going to shoot me. And I would have let you. I still would. I deserve it."

"Many people deserve many things, Sherlock, but not you. You don't deserve any of it. You can trust me on that…I've known plenty of people that have."

"What does it feel like?"

"Should I be rethinking my conclusions on your death fetish?" John asked, his voice teasing but with a black current underneath. Sherlock waited for him to answer and he sighed. "It didn't feel like anything, I suppose, when you get down to it. Whenever I have my finger on the trigger, I let whatever part of me that I can manage split apart and duck behind whatever shrapnel cover it can find. Then I went back and salvaged it later, trying to put everything back like I found it when I was alone. Or if Mary was there."

"You still trust her."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes." John answered quietly. "I feel like a right prick, reacting the way I did. I should have known better."

"It's not your fault, John. You gathered what evidence you had and deduced what you could. You suited the facts to suit your theories."

"Do you think I'll see her again?"

"Yes. Sooner rather than later, considering the fact that you two always seem to be on the same continent at any given time."

"Well, thanks to her, so were we. We just didn't know it."

Sherlock said nothing, but buried his head in the inverted curve of John's arm.

"There's something else I was wondering." John said.

"What's that?"

"When can we get a shower?"

Sherlock grinned against John's chest before he followed him up to the bathroom.

* * *

><p>The hospital was sunny, which was just about the only good thing Mikheia could find about it.<p>

_You're being ungrateful. They saved you your life, did they not? Find other things to be happy about. Stop complaining._

He supposed the food wasn't too bad either.

It was just the raw, unfiltered diaspora of being in a country that had a language he could hardly speak.

It was the isolation of it all that really got to him. Everything was too still. At least when Sherlock was around he was always in a frenzy, trapped in thought or letting his silent presence seep through the room, and then later John was around to talk to about anything, but this sudden silence, their absence…it was like dunking red hot metal into icy water.

It was the loneliness. No more Sherlock. No more John. No more adventures or gun fights or travelling.

Mikheia wondered if he would ever go back to Novgorod like they said he should. He was an adult in his own right, he didn't _have_ to listen to John or Sherlock if he didn't want to, but he respected them too much to disagree. He knew quite well that they were smarter than him in the ways that either his youth or education had denied him. But he had felt so isolated, so trapped, before Sherlock had let him join his adventures, and now it was like he had looked away from the sun and everything was dark and he couldn't see anything as it used to be, only cast in shadows of disappointment.

His nurse, Lia, came in, bless her. The right amount of rush and quickness in her step to take his mind off the slowness of the day.

"Privet, Mikheia. Tebe uzhe luchshe?"

_Hello, Mikheia. Feeling better?_

"Da. Spasibo."

_Yes. Thank you._

Lia, bless her, who knew a smatter of Russian, although he preferred Serbian. Lia, bless her, who had a son his age and thus took special care of him. Lia, bless her, who was carrying those pills that made him feel like his mind was a warm summer breeze. Like he hadn't had a piece of compact metal burn through his shoulder.

"Do you miss them?" Lia asked, checking the bag of fluid by his wounded arm. "The two men that brought you here?"

"Yes. A little more each day."

"They are in love, yes?"

"Yes. Very much in love."

Lia watched him take the pills with careful eyes and smiled, tossing the cup for him.

"Spokojnoj Nochi, Mikheia."

_Goodnight, Mikheia._

"Net. Do svidaniya."

_No. Until next time._

The door swished shut. Left him with the sunlight shining through gabled windows. Left him with his thoughts and silence.

He had seen so much of the world in so short a time. German and Belgium in under a week, not to mention those they had passed through. He couldn't go back to Novgorod with its small walls and its concrete and its history. Not now.

He wanted more. He wanted to be somewhere else, his heart gripped in the fist of the Wanderlust, that curse that had cost his grandfather's life and now was his to bear.

"Mikheia Mikhailovic?"

Mikheia looked up to see a man in the doorway, dressed in a sharply cut suit.

"_Da_—um—yes, that is me, sir."

The man looked at him a moment.

"May I come in?"

"Please."

The man walked in slowly, like he was testing to see if the tiles would give way under his weight. Like he was stalking prey in tall grass.

"Does the name Sherlock Holmes mean anything to you?" He asked.

Mikheia was suddenly hit by the desire to not trust anything this man said. Criminals, even a reformed one like him, knew one when they saw one. There was a slickness in his eyes and a cadence in his voice that screamed _Do not go into a dark alley if I am behind you or your throat will be slit and your wallet gone faster than you can say 'Help me Jesus'_.

"No." He shook his head, putting on that innocent face that had saved his life more times than he could count. "Should I?"

The man stared at him.

"May I ask how you received your injury?"

"The Germans and Russians have never gotten along, sir. I thought that much was obvious—"

"Funny. For a Russian you have an odd accent."

"Apologies, sir. I did not know you were an expert."

The man's face soured like he had eaten a lemon.

"Why are you so far away from home, Mikheia?"

"If I address you respectfully sir, then I expect the same from you."

The man's teeth were grinding.

"Why are you so far away from home, _Gospodin _Mikhailovic?"

"The Soviet Union was disbanded two decades ago, sir. Therefore I can go wherever I wish. It is the beauty of a non-Communist state, see. Free travel and all that."

This man was getting annoyed with him. Good for him. He clearly did not have much patience.

"May I ask how you got here?"

"I will answer if you tell me your name. It is a formality that strangers enjoy when they are being courteous with one another so they do not seem impolite."

The man stared at him with dark eyes.

"My name is Moran. Sebastian Moran. And I have a proposition for you. And I can guarantee that you are not going to say no to me."

* * *

><p><strong>I guess I was just on a roll or I felt bad for not updating and you guys get an <em>incredibly<em> long chapter!**

**I forgot how much I missed Mikheia though. AND sassy!Mikheia? *_DEAD*_**

**Thank you again to everyone who reviewed!**


	28. big brother

_"There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. __There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don't you?"_

- Rumi

* * *

><p>When Sherlock first told him of his exploits, his tracking down and burning Moriarty's web, it had seemed so exciting, so thrilling, so like what they used to do. John felt as if he could have all the gun chases again, all the hand-to-hand combat, he could get <em>flesh wounds<em> again for Christ's sake! And Sherlock would be there, be there to worry over him and be quietly protective and loudly reckless.

Pure conjecture on his part.

He realized this as he sat at an open air café off the famed Baščaršija square and waited. He'd been there for a half-hour already. Not that he was complaining, since his surroundings were more than pleasant.

The café was tucked off the square like an alcove and he sat in the middle of a quaint little courtyard, surrounded on all sides by a hotel of sorts, whitewashed and framed in a dark brown, with the lower levels serving as typical Turkish bazaars selling their wares; plush rugs and silver trinkets mostly from what he saw. A large tree had been planted in the centre, shading a majority of the seats and tables and leaving the mosaic-like cobblestones cool to the touch. Peaceful noise drifted through the arched entrance to the café from the main streets of the square, full of tourists and locals, good people and bad, young and old. The bands of bracelets hanging from the stalls tinkled in the breeze like wind chimes.

If he had picked anything up from his time with Sherlock, it was his habit of people-watching, which was gleefully exacerbated by the agency; they took that basic rudimentary skill and taught him how to use it, moulded it to their needs. When he'd first started, he had the abstract feeling that Sherlock would have been proud of him, or as proud as he could be of anything that he'd had a direct hand in (somewhere John knew he'd claim all the credit and give the agency none they deserved).

Sherlock had taught him to pick up details on people with one sweeping gaze. Inconspicuous. Something normal and unobtrusive when one walks into unknown territory.

Two men behind him, two tables to the right, talking in rapid Bosnian about something that was probably as mundane as bills but sounded to John like Tchaikovsky madly plucking the strings of a ponder, dark, exciting and foreign and melodic as all languages seem to a non-speaker.

A family of four: man and woman, teenaged son and older daughter. Three tables back. Dutch. Tourists.

Two women, Colombian, judging by the dialect. Two tables beside him. Young. Beautiful. Laughter like the tinkling silver bracelets beside them.

But the agency had taught him to take those details and read into them. Something Sherlock hadn't had the time for before his departure (it was just a departure, John told himself when he ate alone, worked alone, woke alone).

The two men. There was an urgency in their voices, hushed and low, that suggested that the topic of conversation might be illicit. They met at the café because one was staying upstairs in the hotel. John had seen his room key sticking out of his pocket, along with a passport. That glance told him that one man was ready to run if he had to. That he didn't necessarily trust the person he was talking to. They weren't eating in the building next to them that advertised '_Restoran_' in bright green letters, which meant that they wanted to be somewhere open-air to have their talk without the interference of waiters. Conclusion: illicit behaviour, but they aren't expecting a fight. Just business.

The family. Talking with the buoyancy of happiness and contentment. Vacationing. Not discussing the wife's affair. Not discussing the son's early-onset signs of heroin addiction. Not discussing the abscess in the husband's lungs from years of cigarette abuse and long nights at work. The wife's ring was missing. The son's eyes were heavy and drawn; there were marks in the crook of his bare arms. The husband's coughs were constant and thick with a sickness not yet diagnosed. John supposed he should go tell them, just sit down and reveal every single thing he had observed and warn them to get help, but who would listen to a well-meaning non-native stranger in a foreign country? Conclusion: strained filial bonds, on holiday to retrieve the remnants. Harmless, generally speaking.

The two women. Dressed impeccably well, some kind of travel-chic like models right out of a magazine. Wearing real gold. Rich, and eager to show it. Not tourists, though. He had heard them order their coffee in Serbian. John quickly crossed out prostitution. No streetwalker wore anything with great value when they were working. They knew the language well, they were young and beautiful, they were…Ah. One of them caught eyes with the Dutch son, the heroin addict, and nodded quickly, looking to someone who just glanced over like she was tossing her hair over her shoulder. Drug runners, then. Conclusion: Professionals. Unarmed, but to be watched carefully.

If anything, Sherlock had taught him to glimpse the interesting parts of people.

The agency had taught him to see the ugliness.

* * *

><p>The room was dark when the door opened again. Mikheia blinked, willing his eyes to adjust as he dragged himself out of a shallow sleep. His shoulder burned like smouldering coals had nestled inside it and they shook around, setting his teeth on edge.<p>

"Ko je tamo?" He said, hand groping for the light.

_Who is there?_

Silence. Then:

"Prijatelj."

_A friend_.

A deep voice, distant but not threatening, soothing in its heaviness. Like running your fingers over a guitar's strings in the dark and hearing them hum. There was safety in its familiarity.

"Ime?"

_A name?_

"Kojih je jedan?"

_Which one?_

Mikheia's hand found the light and he turned it on.

In the darkness it was his father. Bleeding from between his eyes. Staring at him with eyes that only stared. Eyes that his fingers had brushed as a child that hadn't shut because rigor mortis had already set in and they were frozen open. Eyes that burned him through that cheap casket that had cost them two days of food and his mother's pride.

As his eyes adjusted, it was Annushka. That man that had driven the flaming hot fragment of hell itself into his chest. That man that he and his friends once laughed at and called Anya because the poor man's mother had been an illiterate and thought Annushka was a boy's name, not a nickname for the English 'Anna'. That man that acted stupid so that Mikheia—whom he knew was the cleverest of that sorry bunch of bastards—would underestimate him, would tried to steal from the simpleton Anya, get caught, and pay for it. That man that had gone and let his pride get in the way, that man so drunk on alcohol and bloodlust, that had gotten his ear shot off and his head blown through because of a small, hurt boy that he had introduced to the world's cruelty too early.

In the light it was Sherlock Holmes. So dark and so pale, like a raven trapped under snow.

"Where is John?" Mikheia asked.

_How the hell do you know Serbian?_ _You never let on._

"Sleeping in the hallway." Sherlock answered. "Trains don't agree with him."

_You really think I'd enter a country and not have a grasp of its linguistics? You know me better than that, Mikheia._

"How long will you go?"

"I don't know."

"Mr Holmes, I—"

_Do not send me back. Please, do not send me back. Let me come with you. I will carry bags. I will translate maps and signs. I will just get coffee and sit and do nothing else. I do not care. I will do anything you ask. Please do not send me back._

"No, Mikheia. It is out of the question."

_I can't. I'm sorry. I'll pay your hospital bills—or Mycroft will, rather. I'll send you back with enough money to last for years. I'll give you a stipend, even. Write to you when I can. Give your sister the love letters with my signature that she's been daydreaming about (as long as John doesn't mind). I'll do anything. But I will not take you with me._

"Sherlock."

_I know you know what it's like. To be trapped in your head when you want to move. You and I are similar men. We want to bathe in the fire. I can be burned. I have been plenty of times. I can survive. Just like you did. Just like John. There's no fire in Novgorod. There's too much concrete._

"Mikheia. You know I can't. John can't. You have so much to lose. We only have each other."

_It's enough though, isn't it Mr Holmes? I saw your face that night, I saw you as you wiped the blood off John's face._

"And me?" Mikheia asked quietly. "What do I have to lose?"

_My life? I have already tried that. Nearly lost it. Recovered it. Sheltered it. Let me take it out of the fireproof box. Let me live._

"Your mother and sister need you."

_John needs me. __**Just **__me. And I need him. I had three years of needing him. I will not wait any longer._

"They need _money_." Mikheia said, desperation creeping into voice as he realised that maybe joining them was truly not an option. "I have seen your brother. I know I do not need to worry about their finances."

_You can try and keep me here, but I'm going to find you because I tasted the fire of a supernova and it burned me in a beautiful way that shook the starry leaves off of the cosmos. It burned me to match your doctor and now we are twins and you can't separate twins Mr Holmes because they will find each other one way or another, like magnets. You can't rip Gemini in half without the other stars bleeding in protest._

"Mycroft will listen to me if I advise him against it."

"Will you?"

_No. I won't, because I owe you. I owe you for saving John's life and I owe you for that bullet in your shoulder because of it. But this conversation is over, Mikheia._

"John and I will be gone in a few hours." Sherlock said, his voice cold and clipped like a knife buried in permafrost. "I anticipate that in the next few days a man will come here. He won't tell you who he is, but he will ask if you know me. You will tell him no, but I don't need to tell you that, do I? You wouldn't say yes, because even though you are angry at me you don't have the nature to seek revenge on me or on John since you think maybe one day you can join us like you're hoping and you don't want to ruin your chances."

Sherlock knocked away the call button that Mikheia was reaching for.

"Mikheia, you aren't that petty as to end a conversation because you don't care for its results. You know very well why I am leaving you here and it's not just because of that hole in your shoulder. It's because you will wait for that man to show up and when he does you will realise why I don't want you with us. You will see him and you will understand because he is dangerous, he is ruthless, and, unfortunately, he is efficient. He won't harm you, though. John and I would not abandon you to face him if we thought he would. He just wants me and John. He doesn't care for bystanders; they are useless to him. You are a bystander. You let a mad genius and his doctor run around you in circle for a few days and then you got dizzy enough to get yourself shot and that is all, do you understand?"

Mikheia couldn't get his words out fast enough.

"Sherlock, you cannot—you cannot just _leave_ me here. I told you once that I haven't stayed with you for pity or money, and it's still true, it is, but you can't just leave me here with your brother and think that money will buy me off when it wasn't even why I went with you—"

"Do you understand?" Sherlock repeated, as if he hadn't heard anything Mikheia had said.

"You _know _I do," Mikheia burst out in a loud, raw voice whose existence Sherlock had long suspected but never witnessed. He could see tears in the boy's eyes. "So why do you keep asking me? I know that we are friends, Sherlock, and friends do not just abandon each other. I heard John tell you that friends don't let one another watch them fall, or do you only listen to him when it's convenient for you—"

"_Do you understand, Mikheia_?"

Mikheia had heard that voice say that phrase only once before, when his father told him to run close to the walls and not look back, no matter what sounds he heard, no matter how much he cried. It ended with a sudden spray of his father's blood onto the dirty slush of the sidewalk, ended with Mikheia knowing in his five year old heart that his father would never laugh again, never smile or joke or hug him, and that he was alone, all alone, and thus the son christened into this world with the blood of the father.

Of course he understood and Sherlock knew it too. He understood many things. Maths. The Roman Empire. The proper assemblage of an AK-47. The Belgian language. The British desire for world conquest. The chords of a guitar.

This was no different.

He understood the words far before Sherlock said them in his cold clipped voice that sounded like a sniper's silenced bullet, too quiet for anyone in the hallway to know of the life it just destroyed.

"Go home, Mikheia."

* * *

><p>It was odd that, separated by four countries, this memory chose to let itself be summoned at the same time by its two witnesses.<p>

Sherlock felt bad about leaving the boy.

There. He said it. Or admitted, rather.

He'd known the instant he'd seen John again that he would leave Mikheia behind. It had been a sudden realisation, a tiny little epiphany like headlights flashing across a dark road before moving on.

He only had one friend, and now he was back.

He didn't know what he considered Mikheia. Child? Adult? Friend? Ward? A little bit of all, he assumed. So young, so wounded, so eager. Sherlock supposed that he had seen some of himself in that boy. Some whispered recognition that they were in the same sinking boat and had only each other to bale the water out, some flash of kinship that made him want to shut Mikheia away where no one would harm him, save that little boy with that spider scar because no one had tried to save Sherlock until John and maybe he just wanted to salvage in that boy what Sherlock had lost.

If he looked objectively, it was because Mikheia reminded him of John. Loyal. Brave, and wounded because of it. Far kinder than he was, and far shorter too (though who wasn't?). Admired his genius in ways that others didn't, in a way that wasn't fearful or jealous but…_awed_. Sherlock didn't come across many that enjoyed it and fewer that wanted to stay with him in part because of it.

He strode down the stone streets of the Baščaršija square, in a hurry to get back to John and tell him all that he had learned.

He knew John had been disappointed by his daily activities, although he was too kind and polite to say so. John had heard 'burn what remains of Moriarty' and he took that to mean 'get the flamethrower, take no prisoners'. Sherlock hadn't warned him of the boring days, the days when the leads didn't pan out or he reached a dead end, the days when there was nothing to do but wait and drive yourself crazy.

This was one of those days.

After his talk with Mikheia, that horribly distant talk that would save that boy's life, he had talked to Mycroft.

The hospital hallway had been empty. Mycroft had probably seen to it to ensure John a peaceful sleep. His way of apology. Sherlock was nearly too angry with him to take a step further once he saw him at the other end of the hall. His hands had trembled with a cold rage that he rarely let himself feel simply because it was so potent, so heavy, so angry that he feared for those around him when it reared its head.

"Good to see you again, Sherlock." Mycroft said in that infuriatingly calm voice, as if he had done no wrong and didn't plan to.

Sherlock didn't answer and Mycroft tutted.

"Surely you'd have something to say to me after your long absence."

"Fuck you."

"Such obscenities, Sherlock, really, they don't suit you more than they do a twelve year old—"

"Fuck you." Sherlock repeated because it felt good to say the first time and that feel had diminished no less the second. "Fuck you for leaving John like scraps for those wolves to feed on, fuck you for knowing how much he means to me and abandoning him, fuck you for nearly letting him die, and fuck you for wearing that fucking tie. The colours make you look bloated."

Mycroft gave a sigh as if to say 'well, what can you do?' then eyed Sherlock. "Finished?"

Sherlock stared back at him.

"You know, I'm wondering what use our good doctor is to you Sherlock, he seems to bring out such ugly feelings—"

"What do you want, Mycroft?"

"I see you've lost none of your charm, brother mine. You'll be happy to know that Mikheia will make a fully recovery—"

"You're avoiding the subject. Tell me."

Mycroft glanced to the right, a habit he had when he was annoyed, and exhaled heavily.

"We received a report from Sarajevo early this morning. CCTV scan from the train station." He said, reaching into his jacket as he pulled out a small photograph, blurred and grainy. "I believe you will find it of interest."

Sherlock took it and stared.

"Will you be telling John?" Mycroft asked solemnly.

Sherlock said nothing, continuing to stare blankly at the photo.

"I know sharing isn't in your repertoire, Sherlock, but I think John deserves to know what he's getting himself into."

Sherlock's head twitched to the side slightly, as if he was shaking his head.

"Oh?" Mycroft perked. "You disagree? Well, let's see how far that gets you."

"Don't be fat and stupid Mycroft, you're only good at doing one." Sherlock snapped as he turned around and Mycroft sighed.

"I realise you are only acting out of frustration, my dear brother, but time is of the essence here. Your train leaves in two hours. You have until then to decide your course of action."

Mycroft turned to walk away but Sherlock's murmured voice stopped him.

"Sorry, what did you say?" Mycroft asked, doubling around.

"I said what do you suggest?" Sherlock bit out, not turning to look at his brother.

"Tell him. If he is going to die for you, let him know who will be responsible."

"Will you abandon him?"

Mycroft didn't answer.

"If I leave," Sherlock turned around and Mycroft stared in disbelief at the expression he saw. "Will you abandon him? Or will you watch over him, play Big Brother, and not let him out of your sight?"

Mycroft looked at his brother for a moment, deciding to ignore what he saw so long as Sherlock allowed him to.

"No." He answered calmly. "I did not abandon him, as you seem to be so fond of suggesting. They took him before my reconnaissance could report their presence to me."

"But you waited. You waited until he was half dead to get him out."

"There is a difference between waiting and taking caution, Sherlock. We didn't know where he was or what they were doing until we managed to extract his location and raid the place. You wouldn't have liked what I saw. I didn't like what I saw, to be quite honest."

"What?" Sherlock stepped forward. "What did you see? What did they do to him?"

"That," Mycroft said quietly, "Is something that you should ask him yourself."

Sherlock said nothing, clenching and unclenching his fist in frustration.

"Do take care of yourself, Sherlock. As beautiful a city as Sarajevo is, there are snakes underneath the stones that are ready to bite. Make sure your doctor knows that. I doubt his expertise in antivenin."

Mycroft turned away.

"Answer my question, Mycroft." Sherlock said lowly and Mycroft pursed his lips as he looked over his shoulder at John's sleeping form, as curled on the hospital bench as he could be considering his wounds.

"If in two hours our good doctor remains here, he will not be alone."

Mycroft walked away without another word.

Sherlock took one look at the photo, then one look at John. He took the photo, folded it twice, tucked it in his pocket, sat down beside John, and waited for him to wake.

* * *

><p>John sighed, leaning back in his chair. Sherlock had been adamant about going alone. Whether it was for John's safety or his own, John didn't know, but he had assured Sherlock twice and twice again that he was carrying his gun and would use it if he needed to. He'd certainly been gone long enough, but John was certain that if there was trouble, Sherlock would text him.<p>

His phone lay still.

No one new had come into the courtyard, so he couldn't test his deductive skills on anything new unless he wanted to subject it to the tree.

_What to do, what to do..._

John glanced into the archway, where he could see the various bazaars in the square bustling with activity. A man stared back at him.

It was the grey that caught his eyes.

It was the grey that made him stand, forgetting where he was, focusing on that gun tucked away in the hem of his pants, focusing on the burn of the wounds that still hadn't fully healed.

It was the grey that made him burn.

It was the grey that made him run.

* * *

><p>Sherlock headed towards the archway, mind still circling his memories in the hospital, a great ease blanketing his nerves. He'd been gone longer than he'd anticipated, although Mycroft's intelligence had been worth the trip two-fold. Leaving John alone had not been sitting well with him, especially after he had seen that photograph.<p>

He finally realised why when, just as he reached the arch that lead to the café, John bolted in front of him, not even giving him a second glance as he ran into the crowd after a man clad in grey that Sherlock realised with unflinching certainty was the same man from Mycroft's photograph.

The same man that had tortured John.

The same man that had shot Mikheia.

The same man that he had hoped to surprise later that day, with John at his side so he could get the revenge he so badly deserved.

The same man that had now turned the tables in a way that would make his mentor proud.

"Moran."

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! I loved seeing my familiar faces (as well as some new ones)! I wish I could convey how much I appreciate your dedication! Stay tuned for the next chapter (it's a handful)!<strong>

**If you want to see the place I used for reference for the cafe, go here (remove spaces): http :/ / www . vthawaii . com /EXTRA/Sarajevo/Sarajevo_10f . htm**


	29. the tower of babel

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us—if at all—not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

"The Hollow Men" – T.S. Eliot

* * *

><p>"<em>Get out of my way<em>!"

John barrelled through the stone streets, his shoes banging harshly with each step as he shoved aside the bystanders that were in his way.

Careful, _careful_. They're innocents. Not threats. Pure, not red (that you know of). Focus on the grey. Just the grey. He's the one that did this to you. Your blood is on his hands. Find him, find him, make him pay for what he did to Sherlock, for the pain he caused him when he saw your body, _do it_, run run run—

You remember that look don't you? That look on his face before you passed out from sheer happiness (and maybe more than a little blood loss)? That look you thought was the last thing you'd ever see of him and you were happy, so happy, because you saw him one last time. Your last wish, fulfilled.

But it wasn't, was it?

You woke up. You looked into his eyes. You kissed him and he let you in. You both know what that means to him. You both know that this man almost took you away from him and his wrath would have been of Biblical proportions, an angry and vengeful god set on destruction. You have to stop the grey, erase it, purge it, keep it from hurting him ever again.

As John ran through the bazaar a standing display toppled into his path and he vaulted over it, ignoring the burns of his still-healing wounds if it meant catching this man, if it meant erasing the grey from the world. He felt the burn of adrenaline, the hammer of his heart, the delicious slow burn in his lungs—

Hell, he felt _alive_ again.

He'd been on plenty of foot chases before, both with Sherlock and without, but this one, this one burned with the clearest purpose.

Protect Sherlock. Don't let the grey find him first.

He'd known fully well who was staring at him in that archway. Knew who it was when he stood up, toppled his chair over, and bolted after him.

Sebastian fucking Moran. 6'2". 178 pounds of lean muscle that could snap your ulna like a twig as soon as dislocate your shoulder before you could even realise he was moving.

Soldier. Gun for hire. Author.

John had hardly believed it himself when he came across the titles in his research with 'Moran, Sebastian' listed as the author on the online catalogue. _Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas_. _Three Months in the Jungle_. He had briefly considered the thought that it was simply two men sharing a name, which happened often enough, but a quick scan through the pages of each revealed an uncommon bloodlust for hunting game, which sent off all the alarms in John's head, a warning that screamed '_This man would give Doctor Moreau a run for his money. Beware with utmost caution_'.

Moran knew fully well what he was doing. And John knew fully well where this was going. They might have been eclipsed in the sun of their mad geniuses, but moons lie in the shadow of nothing, and they drift through space alone before they too will move in front and block out the Sun one day.

His gun pressed against his side. He could feel sweat begin to dampen his shirt against it.

It seemed that John had nothing better to do with his time than chase whatever got in his way.

* * *

><p>"What do you do in your free time?" Sherlock asked quietly.<p>

"You." John teased with a smile.

"No, really."

Sherlock's wet hair curling against the pillow, his skin still damp from the shower, water dripping in rivulets over his chest as little wisps of steam curled off his pale shoulders into the cool air. John's hair was matted to his head like papier-mache but it couldn't conceal the pale red scars about his left ear.

"What, you mean like when I'm not working?" He asked, and Sherlock nodded. "Well when I'm not shooting people I'm treating gunshot wounds and when I'm not treating gunshot wounds I'm shooting people."

"But your free time. When it's just you."

"I go out to the pub and wildly shag random strangers every night."

"Unlikely," Sherlock scoffed. "You're a _doctor_, John. You know the risks of sexual promiscuity."

"Yes, but I'm considerate, I smile often, quick to a joke…people often answer to that. I have what you'd call a natural charm, don't I?"

Sherlock's silence was more than enough confirmation.

"I can hear the gears grinding together." John smiled, tapping Sherlock's forehead. "Easy, I'm just taking the piss."

"Was there really no one?"

"Not a one." John said with an easy smile that said he didn't regret a minute of his abstinence. "There were plenty of opportunities, mind you. I'm not hideously unattractive or rude, so naturally I got a few offers. I accepted a few even—I guess to prove to myself that I could—but I realised very quickly that none of them would ever work."

"Why?"

"Well…they weren't you, for starters. Actually…that's about it. They weren't you. That's all I needed to know, really." John looked over at him. "Did you know that you look like a bloody barbet with wet hair?"

Sherlock said nothing, letting his thumbs brush over John's jaw before he leaned in and kissed him, his lips sharply sweet with the dew of apologies and promise of compensation. The kisses were sleeping in Sunday, leaving early Friday, coffee at noon, fresh air on a still day.

John lazily rolled over, keeping Sherlock beneath him as they kissed. Idly, while his brain was on standby, he tried to place the taste. Copper. The shine of silver, sharp and bright. Earth, like cloves. The dryness of old paper.

They were still naked after the shower, neither paying much attention to dressing simply because there wasn't any kind of urgency.

John planned to make good use of the fact.

Hands rolling over soft plains, feeling humming skin and damp shoulders. John closed his mouth around one, feeling not only the bone and sharpness but the softness between the two. Sherlock made a strangled sound and insistently tugged his head away to meet his mouth once more and John allowed him a few deep kisses that tasted of a glowing fire late at night, when people slept but others stayed up to watch the flames die.

He pulled away and his hands gently wrapped around Sherlock's hips.

Sherlock groaned. John tasted.

Skin. Sweat. Saltiness, like the damn Black Sea itself, undulating in its freshness, its pungency. A warmth that tasted of heaviness and spun sugar.

"_John_."

Christ, just the sound alone would make him come.

He felt as if he had just open-mouth kissed a column of the Tower of Babel, language flooding from the salt pillar into his senses. Fingers tight in his hair— _te sunt omnes_. Pale hand gripping the sheet like an anchor in the current— _te sunt interitis_. He ran his hands along Sherlock's thighs, smooth and pale like marble, but pulsing with heat. A hand scrabbled at his and intertwined the fingers it found—_te sunt tatum_. Tongues rolled and swirled in empty and occupied mouths. Iliums twitched, ischiums pulsed upwards—_te sunt mundi__, s__idera__, S__ol_. Muscles tightened in on themselves, writhing, shaking. Tremors. John's hand left the curve of Sherlock's hip and drifted to his own lazily, like a lapping tide.

_Te sunt spiritus, cor, anima_.

_Vita._

_Vobis sunt._

A choked sound escaped Sherlock as he broke apart, John drifting after him, and that was the only sound in the room for a long, long time.

They had laid together for another hour, unwilling to leave their room, pressed front to back and as naked as the day they were born. Despite their previous activities, however, there was very little innuendo to be found in their actions, just simple intimacy. Twin souls comforting each other, embracing as closely as possible as if osmosis could be an option.

When they finally did manage to get dressed and wander out, it proved rather disastrous.

* * *

><p>They'd been exploring the bazaars of Baščaršija when it started. John had been playing tourist, haggling with sellers without buying anything, stopping to look at whatever caught his eye, and Sherlock had been looking at him with utter fascination, as if he were realising the true worth of something he had only ever guessed at.<p>

As John paused to examine a throw rug, a sharp voice rang out.

"Sigerson!"

They both turned, one in inane curiosity and the other in reflex to the name.

A dark blonde woman, mid-twenties and oddly familiar looking, was staring at Sherlock with blazing blue eyes as if he had just insulted her in the worst way possible.

"Oh, no—" Sherlock sighed, before the woman bounded up to him and slapped him with a resounding, harsh smack.

"Hanne," Sherlock held up his hands, taking on that face that he assumed regular humans made when they didn't want a fight. "Vennligst forstår—"

The woman moved as if to slap him again and John stepped between them, grabbing her hand.

"Sherlock, what the bloody hell is she on about? Who is she? Who is Sigerson?"

"Han er!" The woman shouted, grabbing her hand back and pointing at Sherlock.

"Her name is Hanne." Sherlock said calmly. "I lodged with her family in Syria. Vacationing Norwegians. With my conversational knowledge of the language, I fit right in. Perhaps a little too well…" He added, eyeing Hanne, who was still red in the face with anger.

"What—I don't understand. Did you—I mean, were you two a…thing?"

"A thing?" Sherlock asked. "She's a human being, John, I'd hardly reduce to calling her a _thing_—"

"Did you…were you romantically related?" John said, feeling his face flush although he knew it didn't matter.

"_Romantic_?" Sherlock echoed with a bark. "She was more inclined than I was."

"So why is she angry with you?"

"Løgneren! Tyven!" Hanne shouted at John, as if gesturing wildly would help him understand Norwegian.

"I may have stolen some money from them to finance my trip to Khartoum."

"_Sherlock_!"

"Mycroft wasn't allowing me any finances and I had to get out of the country immediately, what was I to do? Oh, don't look so scandalised, John, it's not as if this should be surprising in the least—"

"Well can't you just pay her back or something? It's not like Mycroft hasn't stuffed our wallets with cash from a million fucking countries—"

John moved in exasperation and Hanne's eyes widened, all the fight fleeing her. Both John and Sherlock followed her gaze to where John's gun lay tucked into his waistband with just the hilt peeking out. He had made sure to let his cardigan cover it, but it had been momentarily pushed aside by his arm.

John looked back up to Hanne, who had her hands up.

"Ingen problemer, beklager—" She met John's eyes with a cautious insistency. "No—trouble."

"Oh, wonderful, now she speaks English." Sherlock said acerbically.

"No, wait, I don't mean any harm—" John said, reaching out to show her, but Hanne backed away fearfully.

"Bli der du er!" She said, casting another shaky glance at the two before hurrying off into the crowd.

"I suspected that you'd been carrying your gun with you, John, but I must say that it is quite handy."

"Yes, well please don't expect me to go flash my gun at any other strangers that you happened to have robbed along your travels." John said dryly. "Otherwise we'll never get anywhere."

"I feel obliged to tell you that there are a good number of them."

"Oh, lovely."

"But the likelihood that they are in Sarajevo are staggering. The ratio alone must be in the triple digits—"

"Care to bet on that?" John said, smiling, which Sherlock mirrored before heading on with his quick pace. John began to follow but stepped on a cobblestone the wrong way and stumbled, Sherlock too absorbed in thought to notice.

A hand shot out to steady him, but its grip on his arm was tight, too harsh to be friendly. That grip knew where his still-raw injuries lay.

_Enemy. Not Sherlock_._ Swathed in grey, not black._

"Careful, Doctor Watson." A low voice said and John turned his head in confusion, only to meet the black gaze of Sebastian Moran.

He didn't know why he hadn't shot the fucker in the face right then and there.

Maybe he thought his mind was tricking him. Maybe Sherlock had gotten too far ahead already and they were in a country where it was better to be together than apart. Maybe it was because he knew Sherlock wouldn't wait for him, no matter how many blowjobs he got or however many times he told John he loved him (John didn't hold it against him though. Quite the opposite. He found Sherlock's impatience endearing, when it wasn't annoying him at least). Maybe he like that rush of fear that he felt as Moran stared at him and he stared back. Maybe on some level he recognised that if he drew his gun and shot, he'd either be arrested faster than a hooligan trying to pants the Queen or shot right back, and then Sherlock would be all alone.

Whatever the reason, John moved on into the crowd, following after Sherlock and not knowing whether to tell him or not.

It didn't matter though, that he didn't tell him.

An hour later, he was chasing him through the streets.

Sherlock's ratio of people he pissed off—to—people in Sarajevo seemed with every hour that passed to be falsely corroborated.

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you so, so, so <em>fantastically<em> much to everyone who reviewed last time! I really love your reactions (the more detailed the better), and shit is about to get crazy.**

**Fuseaction, this next chapter and all it's BAMF-ness is for you, so fangirl to your heart's content.**


	30. blood

"My PTSD comes from long exposure to combat trauma. I think it comes from the fact that I survived. That wasn't my plan. It's an honor to die for my country, but I made it home… [being diagnosed with PTSD] means I have nightmares every night. It means I'm hyper-vigilant - It means I have no fuse and if I get attacked, I'm going to kill…I don't want to feel this way."

_- Scott Ostrom, Marine, Iraq War Veteran_

**Warning: Some serious BAMF action ensues**

* * *

><p>John's heart was the happiest it had been in years, thrumming, pounding, beating out a rhythm of sheer joy as he ran. His brain hummed with cool purpose, focusing in on one target and nothing else. Hell, if he squinted, he could pretend he was running through the market of Asadabad, wearing that god awful uniform that he hated right up until the moment he took it off, when he began to miss it with a terrible ferocity. Asadabad, where he could rip off his Kevlar with the rest of the troop and dive into the Pech and not worry about anything for a half hour at the most and just float in the cool water and pretend he wasn't there. Asadabad, where he burned on that beach in his dream, where he was taken from Sherlock like a fish on a line, left to wake in that crushing despair where every shadow looked like a silhouette of that mad genius as the fever clung to him. He still tried not to think of the Kremlin, but that didn't mean he didn't. And it was also another story, for another time.<p>

Right now, he was chasing that grey, that fucking grey, through the market as if the devil was on his heels, and perhaps in a sense he was. Bystanders turned briefly to look at them or yell, but they all passed by in a blur, becoming sparser as the crowds thinned and the market ended.

John knew very well what Moran was planning to do. He was too smart to fire into a crowd, not because he might hit a civilian, but because he might miss. He was a trained sniper, accurate from a distance, not running across bumpy cobblestones that might jar his aim.

He wanted John alone.

And John was going to let him believe that he had the upper hand.

He pushed past the last coagulation of people and caught the flash of grey as it disappeared down a sidestreet.

_He can't run forever. He's going to find somewhere to ambush me eventually._

And so he did.

John sidled up to the bakery with the smashed window carefully. He felt like he was back in Afghanistan again, creeping up on buildings that brewed and teamed with the enemy.

He had, however, expected the bakery to be empty considering that it was a Sunday. Yet two women and a little girl turned their eyes up to him fearfully, a tray of pastries face down on the floor in front of them, dropped in shock. A family taking advantage of down time to catch up on their baking, not suspecting that a crazed psychopath would crash through their window when he found their door to be locked or that a small British man would calmly follow as if he'd been trained for it, as if he had been waiting for this moment all his life.

"Čovek?" John asked, summoning what little Bosnian he had managed to glean from the pamphlets. "Siva?"

The woman pointed with a shaking figured to the back of the bakery, where the machinery whirred away in an alcove. John nodded, keeping his gun drawn.

"Out." He said solemnly, and they must have trusted something in him, his face or his gun or his resoluteness or the fact that he was after the strange man that had invaded their bakery and ruined their day, because they fled hurriedly into the street.

As he vaulted over the counter and into the alcove, there was a screeching bang as the lights were shot out.

"And I thought we were playing fair." John said, ducking down and crouching behind some metal cabinets.

"You let me burn, John Watson." The sandpaper voice came from the darkness itself, everywhere and nowhere. "And I plan on returning the favour."

"Funny," John said, scanning the room. "A friend of yours once promised the same thing."

"Do you know what he told me? He said people like us, they don't get happy endings."

"Well you shouldn't feel bad. I didn't either."

"Holmes came back for you."

"We actually just met in the middle in a happy coincidence." John said dryly. "But being with him again, that doesn't mean I'll get a happy ending. Look where we are now."

Moran stepped forward out of the darkness from across the room, hands in his pockets, shadows still clinging to him as if trying to drag him back.

"I suppose congratulations are in order, then." He said with a bitter grin.

"For what, exactly?" John asked, raising his gun to aim in the centre of Moran's forehead.

"All the fucking shagging you lot have been up to." He said, laughing as he picked up a tulumbe and bit into it, spitting it back out onto the floor before he could chew. "Marathon sessions, from what I can tell since you've rarely left the hotel." Moran tossed the pastry to the floor and looked up at him, cocking an eyebrow. "Honestly, don't you have anything else to do?"

"Did you?" John smirked, watching Moran's face darken.

"Don't you fucking bring him up, Watson—"

"Why not? That's why we're here isn't it? So what was it like then? Did he use whips and chains? Gag balls? Was he a bottom or top—"

Moran's hand lashed out, sending a few trays of bread clattering to the floor. John moved to side-step it and came face to face with Moran, though they were separated by the metal cabinets.

"He was _beautiful_." Moran snarled. "A proper genius. _My_ genius. A visionary. A good man—"

"_A good man_?" John echoed. "He was a bloody _psychopath_! He strapped explosives to people! Innocent civilians!"

"Funny." Moran cocked his head. "I wouldn't call you an innocent civilian."

"I'll bet you were the bottom." John said calmly and Moran lashed out again, tossing a handful of pastries at him.

"Will you stop fucking harping on who was the bottom?" Moran shouted before he composed himself again, brushing his hair back as John tried not to laugh. _Moran_, Sebastian fucking Moran, just got angry enough to throw food at him. It was almost too juvenile.

"He killed people." John said coolly.

"And so did you. And so did I. But didn't you see the art in the ways he did it, Doctor Watson? The way their blood spattered like a Pollock? The colour of their asphyxiated face like a Warhol?"

"Christ," John sighed. "You both deserve each other then, seeing how mad you are."

Moran stared at him for a moment, a slow smile coming on his face.

"You stand there and when I say he was an artist, you tell me he was mad. Well, what then of your madman? What then of Sherlock Holmes?"

"Don't bring Sherlock into this—"

Moran whistled. "Look who's touchy now. Isn't it odd, John, that we chose the battiest men in the world to dedicate ourselves to? I saw you, that night at the pool where little Carl died. Where Jim's portfolio began. You were ready to die for him. I'm no different from you in that regard."

"You never got the chance?"

"Oh, no, I got the chance. Plenty of times." Moran sniffed. "Hundreds, even. I just didn't throw myself in front of a bullet or cover him if a bomb went off—no, that's too _pedestrian_. Too similar to something you would do. I actually weigh my options, John. I protected him in ways that weren't so stupidly obvious."

"You know he'd never have done the same for you—"

"Of course not!" Moran laughed. "And yours wouldn't either, would he?"

"He has. Dozens of times."

"Is that what he's let you believe, John?" Moran said then made a sympathetic sound. "Love can be so boring to those that are above it. Sherlock and Jim, they play with us and we let them because we enjoy it. They let us think that it's love, but it's just a way to pass the time."

_That noise Sherlock made this morning, when he was wrapped around me and I was inside him_._ That desperate groan. That desperate kiss. That wasn't just passing time._

"Then Moriarty deserved what he got, letting you think that's what love was." John smiled pityingly. "You're missing out, Seb."

Moran's face twisted in anger and he banged the metal cabinets, sending a hollow sound through the kitchen that sounded like a gunshot.

"Don't fucking tell me that I'm missing out! I knew what I had! No one —_no fucking one_—knew him like I did. I knew him inside and out. I knew his heart."

"Well, Sherlock's the only one who knows what his brain looks like, all smattered on the concrete, so I'd wager that you didn't quite see _all_ of him—"

John was cut off as Moran gave a hoarse shout and rushed him, tackling them both to the ground. John hit his head harshly on a bag of flour and he felt it break under his weight, coating them both with fine white dust. Moran's fist flew at his face and John was unable to stop the crushing impact in time before blood spurted from the newly fresh cut on his nose. The blood flowed into the flour on his face, turning into a gross, thickening paste that drizzled into John's mouth.

He blocked the next strike with one arm then brought the other to hit Moran's solar plexus, effectively knocking the wind out of the larger man although not packing as much power as he'd have liked it to.

"Good." Moran wheezed into the ripped bag of flour. "Very good, Doctor Watson."

John scrambled up and tried to aim a kick to Moran's chest but Moran grabbed a fistful of flour and tossed it at him, blocking his vision for a moment, although that was all it took for Moran to jump up and land a solid kick to John's chest. John crashed against the metal cabinets as the breath was knocked out of him, but managed to send a vicious calcitrate into Moran's side as he lunged at him, sending him crashing sideways into a rolling cart.

John's vision began to blur and he wanted to grab it before it fled, claw at it to get it back. Moran's punch must have been harder than he thought. He blinked rapidly, willing the fog to go away as he slid off the cabinet, grabbed Moran by the jacket, hoisted him up and hurled him into the cabinets, where his back connected with a sickening crack. John's back began to burn from reopened wounds. Sherlock wouldn't be happy.

Moran groaned but recovered quickly, throwing all his weight at John, who tried to side-step but ended up spinning them sideways as Moran barrelled into him. Moran reacted quickly, sending one foot behind John's as he tripped him, sending them both to the floor where John's head connected harshly, sending his vision burning a blinding white for a few seconds, no doubt worsening whatever injury he had gotten from that first punch.

Sherlock would definitely not be happy.

"John?" Sherlock's voice came from outside, just before the bakery. He was walking their way.

Two heartbeats passed as John and Sebastian stared at one another, neither moving but both breathing heavily. The adrenalin burned through them both, thick with blood. Moran's hands tightened on John's flour-stained collar and John could almost hear his thought process.

_Kill him in front of Sherlock. That's what Jim told you to do. His last wish. Honour it._

John's head swam like a boat untethered from its moor as Moran hoisted him up by his shirtfront, sending enough pans and metal trays clattering to the floor to draw Sherlock's attention far more quickly than dragging John into the street. He scrambled for his dropped gun.

Moran stepped into the sunlight, his clothes trailing flour in the wind like dust. In the blur of movement John could see Sherlock's dark hair framing his pale face, all colour draining from it as Moran stopped in front of him.

"Holmes." He said thickly, wiping at the blood on his face. Yet Sherlock wasn't looking at him. He had only eyes for John, who was on his knees in front of him, head trapped in the chokehold of Moran's arm. "I'm up here, Holmes."

The detective's cold gaze turned to him.

If looks could kill Moran would be dead ten times over. Fortunately for him, they could not.

"Moran." Sherlock said calmly. His voice was almost courteous.

"Oh, let's not forget Watson, here." Moran jerked John upwards, snapping his head back to reveal his face, messy with blood and flour. "You should tell him to keep up his sparring. He's gotten quite sloppy since we last met. Although I wouldn't bet on him remembering that bit—"

John managed to muster up enough strength to struggle, but it was quickly cut off by a squeeze of Moran's forearm. John stopped with a harsh choked groan, his head pounding. Sherlock's gloved hands tightened into fists.

"Shh, John, grown-ups are talking." Moran hushed before his gaze snagged on Sherlock's clenched hands. "Going to fight me over your bonnie lass' honour, then, Holmes?" Moran smiled through a bloodied lip.

"No." Sherlock said solemnly, drawing a gun from his waistband and aiming it directly at Moran's forehead. "I was just planning on shooting you."

Moran whistled. "You're like Jim. You don't like getting your hands dirty. Wager that's not even loaded."

"Care to find out? I could disprove that theory a good six or seven times. I could disprove it right into your kneecaps, your stomach, your face, all sorts of places, really, and leave you here to die a very slow, painful death, bleeding out in the dirt—"

"You're made of different material than me or Watson, Holmes. Your gloves are too tight to pull that trigger, for one. Too fancy. Too inclined towards looking _chic_ than serving their purpose right. Anyways," Moran hoisted John up so he was standing and drew his gun, placing it to his temple. "You shoot me and he'll be dead before I hit the ground. I can guarantee it."

Sherlock's hand didn't waver, but his expression tightened.

"I could say the same for you."

Moran laughed. "No you can't! _You_ against a trained marksman? I'm positively quaking in my little boots."

"John is not the one responsible for Jim's death. If anything, I am to blame. Logically then, your gun is aimed at the wrong person."

"No, I know who this bullet is for, Holmes." Moran said, tracing John's temple with the muzzle and missing Sherlock's stricken gaze. "I know it will destroy you even if you remain unharmed. There's no fooling me on this one."

"Sh—Sherlock." John gasped out, both men looking to him before he trailed off, closing his eyes.

"Well go on, then, Doctor, you've got us all on tenterhooks now." Moran said, easing the pressure on John's windpipe.

"V—Vatican Cameos." John said and Sherlock's eyes widened before he threw himself to the ground, leaving an utterly bemused Moran open to John's impending pistol whip as he brought his hastily retrieved gun out of his waistband and across the back of his head. Moran's gun went off as he fell, the bullet whizzing into thankful nowhere.

Before Moran could move John placed a foot on the back of his neck, keeping him pinned into the dirt as he aimed his gun at the back of his head.

"John, are you—"

"Yes, Sherlock, I'm fine." John said with a rasping voice. "You?"

"The same as you, although undoubtedly cleaner."

"Isn't this cute?" Moran muttered into the dirt before he began to try and twist out from under John's boot.

"Moran, you're not stupid enough to think I don't have a gun trained on the back of your head, so stop it, will you?" Moran obliged and John turned to Sherlock. "What do you propose we do with him?"

"We could either contact the local authorities or phone Mycroft. Both would be effective although he'd end up with the latter either way—"

Sherlock's musings were cut off with the screech of brakes as a dark SUV sped its way to them and skidded to a loud halt.

"Ah, and so the cavalry cometh." Moran said with a bark of a laugh and John didn't need a second glance to know that the men getting out were heavily armed.

"Sherlock, get down!" John shouted, grabbing the detective by the collar and pulling him in a narrow alley as bullets began to whistle and burn around them. He turned his back to the entrance and pulled Sherlock flush against him, cradling his head against his chest. Through the hum of adrenalin Sherlock could smell flour and blood and sweat, a perfumed cocktail that he never wanted to smell on John again. They would be having words as soon as this was over. If it was over.

Silence. The banging of doors and the roar of tires.

John knew Moran was gone long before he ducked his head out of the alley to see the rising dust.

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><p><strong>FuseAction, I hope you enjoyed this! There's much more to come.<strong>

**To Nathanae: Thank you for such a lovely review! I never, ever, _ever_ thought in a hundred billion years that someone might actually _recommend_ this, but I'm happy you're enjoying it!**

**And, as always, thank you to my amazing, loyal reviewers! I love every one that comes my way!**


	31. overwintering

"And I pray aloud for you  
>And I look out for you<br>We are what we are  
>Don't need no excuses for the scars"<p>

Daughter – "The Woods"

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><p>John swayed suddenly, threatening to collapse where he stood, but gloved hands grasped him under the arms and lowered him to the ground.<p>

"You asinine, moronic, half-witted, stupid _idiot_!"

John closed his eyes, letting his head loll against the brick wall, not sure whether to feel relieved or annoyed at the voice now shouting obscenities at him as those leather clad hands gently began examining every visible open wound with equal, intense concern.

"That's a little redundant, Sherlock—" He muttered.

Sherlock's head snapped up from his examination the thick red marks on John's neck from where Moran had wrapped his arm around it, and for a moment he looked quite deranged.

"Do I look like I could be arsed to care about bloody _redundancy_, John?" Sherlock snarled and John supposed that he was right. "You just got into a fistfight with Sebastian Moran and he nearly blew your head off!" He leaned in closer, his voice a hiss in John's ear. "If you _ever_ do that to me again, I'll be sure to kill you myself."

"Providing Moran doesn't get to me first?" John asked before he realised what he was saying. His blood hummed with a calmness he hadn't felt in years. The thrill of a chase, knowing Sherlock was there with him, it was like a heat that didn't burn but pulsed and coursed through him.

Sherlock's hands fell from John's shoulders. Seeing his face as the words tumbled out of his mouth turned the light, buzzing heat to a leaden, still ice.

"Christ—Sherlock, 'm sorry, I didn't mean that—" John slurred.

Then Sherlock's words were being hissed again in his ear.

"What are you playing at John?" Sherlock moved his hands to frame John's face, brushing a bloodied lock of hair out of his eyes. "You think I value your life so worthlessly that I'd let you throw away? And to _Moran_ of all people? The man isn't even worthy enough to wash Mycroft's pants, let alone kill you."

"He wasn't going to kill me—" John offered in a weak rebuttal he knew wasn't entirely true. He just wanted Sherlock to shut up so they could go back to the hotel and not have it out in an alleyway newly christened with bullet holes.

"Where were you just now, when he had a gun to your head and I thought he was going to blow your brain and my heart out right in front of me?" Sherlock asked irately then let out a heavy exhale. "You are as essential to me as breathing. I will not live without you. Do you understand? _I_. _Will_. _Not_." He gave a rather harsh tug to John's hair and his brain lurched unpleasantly in his skull and he felt like he was about to get sick.

"_Easy_, Sherlock." John hissed. "I've still got a head injury you know."

"You're a bloody idiot, going after him like that. What if I'd lost you?"

There's no point in hiding his feelings regarding John. Not anymore.

"Then you'd know what it feels like..." John murmured, barely catching Sherlock's utterly crestfallen face before he shut his eyes.

Something moved to block out the sun and a gloved hand roughly grabbed his jaw.

"John Hamish Watson," Sherlock's voice was raw, scraped by desperation. "If you've gone and let Moran give you a bloody concussion I won't let you shag me again for a month, do you hear me?"

John let out a hollow laugh, all he could manage in his floating state, cut adrift from caring, from worrying what happened to him now. Sherlock was here, how bad could it get?

"I don't think you could last a month—"

"I'm serious, John!"

"I'll bet you are. Take your word on it…" John muttered, his eyes still shut.

"Open your eyes and look at me." The hand moved from his jaw, pawing at the space under his eyes. "Open your eyes, John."

John managed a non-committal grumble. The light was muted with his eyes shut.

"_Open_. _Your_. _Eyes_."

Wearily, John slid his eyes open and, when they focused, got a good look at Sherlock's face as he stared at him, paler than usual, his eyes consumed with panic.

"Oh, _Sherlock_." John breathed, trying to touch his face but only managing to raise his hand slightly before it dropped back into his lap. "It's just—just some minor bruising. It's nothing to worry about…"

As he trailed off, a high whine began in his ears, like an unending alarm. It felt like his head was tightening, trapped in a compression. Even in his dazed state he knew he had some sort of head trauma, although quite mild, so he counted himself lucky.

Sherlock's mouth moved as he talked, but John couldn't hear what he said.

"What?"

Sherlock repeated himself, a little more forcefully.

The ringing gets louder. It made his head throb and ache.

"Sher—I can't—can't hear you." John murmured.

Hands were at his temples, his ears, examining them for damage, turning his head gently yet it lurched like a boat on choppy water.

The ringing faded.

"No outward ossicle damage…" He heard Sherlock mutter and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. "John?"

"Hm?"

"I asked if you could hear me, but that question seems to be answered." Sherlock looked back out to the alley's entrance before gently wrapping his hands under John's arms and lifting him upwards. "Come on you great idiot. We need to get back to the hotel. I swear to God, if you've gotten anything broken—"

Sherlock trailed off into meaningless threats that John knew he said out of panic and frustration, threats he had no intention of keeping.

As Sherlock tossed his arm over his shoulders and began to walk, John thought the cracks in the pavement that passed underneath his feet were rather lovely.

* * *

><p>"<em>JESUS CHRIST<em>!" John yelped as the icy water poured over him, sending gooseflesh erupting across his skin.

"It's just you and I John, let's not resort to blasphemy." Sherlock said as he stripped off his dirtied shirt, stained in some areas by John's blood.

"Cold water to ease swelling?" John asked through gritted teeth as he leaned against the wall of the shower for support.

"Good to see you're coming to your senses," Sherlock said, stepping into the shower as if the water wasn't at the same temperature of the ocean where the Titanic sank. "Though actually I was more motivated by other things. Cold showers are known to quell sexual tension, correct?"

John was too spaced to be bothered to pretend he knew what Sherlock was going on about, much less that he had dropped to squat on his heels.

"When you're 15, yeah, but 35 is a bit of a stretch—oh Jesus Christ—Sherlock—_what in the buggering hell are you doing_?"

Sherlock looked up at him calmly, bluntly removing his cock from his mouth.

"I thought that would be obvious, John. I'm returning the favour you paid me this morning."

"Well—I mean—that's all well and good, but there's a time and a place—_will you stop doing_ _that_?" John nearly screeched as Sherlock softly licked around the head and he felt the blood pound in his skull like he was standing next to a subwoofer.

"Is it not pleasurable for you?" Sherlock asked clinically, like John was a patient of his.

"Yes, that's it, talk dirty to me." John said dryly. Sherlock made a noise of irritation before he open-mouth kissed the tip of John's glans, gently tonguing the slit, and John thought that the crackle in his ears sounded like bursting fireworks.

"I'm serious, John." Sherlock continued solemnly, as if he wasn't currently letting his tongue lave the tip of John's cock. "If you're not acquiring any pleasure I can stop now. I merely wished to reciprocate—"

"It's not that, Sherlock, trust me. It's—fuck—it's _definitely_ not that. I just—oh fuck me—"

"I'm _trying_ to, John, have some patience please." Sherlock huffed. "And, as I understand it, foreplay pays off quite well in the end—"

"No, that's not what I meant." John groaned, willing his brain to anchor itself back into place as it floated at the end of its tether, bobbing against his skull. "Physical exertion is the least ideal thing to do for a grade one or two concussion. I should be resting, lying down somewhere, not getting a blowjob in the shower, however pleasantly surprising it is—"

Sherlock leaned back on his heels, letting his thumb stroke lazy circles on John's thick, heated flesh. "What grade would you diagnose yourself as having?"

John shut his eyes, quietly analysing the symptoms.

"Most likely a one, if that. If I'd had a two or three, you'd have had to carry me here or to the hospital."

Sherlock said nothing, wordlessly moving to his knees and pressing his head to John's stomach, careful fingers resting on the jut of his hips, avoiding the reopened wounds. For a moment he listened to the blood rushing through John's body as if to reassure himself that it hadn't turned stagnant. "I nearly lost you for the third time today." He said finally.

"The third time?" John asked, looking down as water streamed down the sharp angles of Sherlock's face, so pale against his considerably tanner skin. It drizzled into his eyes but he made no move to wipe it away.

"St. Bart's." He said, holding up his thumb. "And Leipzig." Extended his long forefinger against John's flushed, damp skin. He let John run a hand through his slightly wet hair. "I can't lose you again." He admitted quietly. "Not when I just found you. Not when you came back into my life like you could hear those thoughts I'd had between waking and sleeping, when I wished for nothing else but you."

"Sherlock, I told you I'd never—wait, again? What do you mean again?"

He stared his great eyes up at John and unflinchingly said "The agency."

"Oh."

They were quiet for a moment, a few seconds of running water that sluiced away blood and dirt and dried sweat and things they didn't know how to say.

"Not a loss in the physical sense, of course," Sherlock began, "but when I see you when you're firing your gun, when I see the emptiness in your eyes, I—" He shut his eyes against cool, soft flesh, his eyelashes brushing John's navel. "I don't like it. I don't like it at all."

"I'll never hurt you, Sherlock. Whenever I had my gun out, I was protecting you. You know that right? I would never deliberately aim it at you unless the clip was empty or—God forbid—you got caught in the crosshairs and I had a clear shot."

"I trust you, John."

It wasn't _I know_. It wasn't an assent to a promise that John, in their line of work, couldn't possibly keep. It was an acknowledgment that, if the time came and John's gun was pointed at him, Sherlock would accept it, knowing that John loved him, that John would have his reasons and Sherlock would trust him absolutely and completely.

"I never wanted you to see me that way." John said quietly. "I never—never wanted you to know."

"I don't care. You were surviving."

"No." John smiled emptily and Sherlock felt his hollow laugh, like a reluctant admittance. "Not surviving. Existing, yes, but not living. I was—I was overwintering like a bear in its cave, waiting for sunlight. For change. I didn't know if I'd ever wake up, if I'd ever feel…"

John trailed off into silence and Sherlock didn't press him.

"'He's gotten quite sloppy since we last met.'"

"'Sorry?"

"Moran. He said you've 'gotten quite sloppy since we last met'. What did he mean?"

"I don't know." John answered and Sherlock knew he wasn't lying, even in his addled state.

"Yes, he said as much. I suppose we'll have to ask him to clarify later. Why did you go after him?" Sherlock asked, brushing a wet lock of John's hair back before placing a kiss on his collarbone. "Why didn't you wait for me?"

"Why did you go after Moriarty?" John asked, but it was more rhetorical than biting with venom. "He tortured me. He told me things that night—I don't know if I'll ever tell you what he said. I don't think I ever will tell you."

"Withholding information." Sherlock muttered into his skin. "A logical tactic to gain the upper hand—"

"I'm not gaining the upper hand, Sherlock. That's not what you do in a healthy relationship. I'm protecting you."

"From what?"

"From things you don't want to know. From things that might destroy you."

"Knowledge is beneficial, John."

"Not this kind."

John wrapped his arms around Sherlock's neck and the younger man ducked his head to rest on his chest, next to the starburst scar, as cold water ran over them, feeling more like warmth now and less like ice. Of course John had surreptitiously turned the temperature up, but that was irrelevant.

"Will you trust me?" He asked.

"I previously stated that I do." Sherlock said lowly.

It was an odd sensation, certainly, that John knew something he didn't. But then again, John knew a voluminous amount of things that Sherlock didn't. Proper human interaction. How it felt to be shot. A repertoire of carnal knowledge (though Sherlock thought his expertise in the area was a bonus). The various traditions and hazing rituals of the army. How to make a cake and not confuse crushed amcyl nitrate for sugar (That particular incident began with John remarking that the cake smelled rather bitter and ended with him throwing the oven door open, releasing the inhalant into the room, and making himself so high he tried to take his shirt off, failed halfway through and danced on the table, half his shirt dangling off him like a snake shedding its skin. It was an event that neither he nor Sherlock ever mentioned it again.).

His thoughts dropped back to earth as John clumsily tried to turn the faucet off and Sherlock reached out a steady hand to help him.

Steam rose of their bodies through the silence.

"He threatened to kill you and make me watch." John said quietly. "So I suppose he's not so different from Moriarty in his M.O. But I'm only giving you the basics. He said much worse things."

"All pure conjecture, then?" Sherlock asked as John stepped out of the shower.

"Some of it."

"John."

The doctor grabbed a towel from the rack and turned.

"I know I'm not particularly loquacious with my affection—"

John smiled.

"You can say that again."

"Why would I need to when you clearly heard me?" Sherlock asked and John stared at him.

"_Anyways_—you were saying?"

"You—Christ, you make it seem so easy—you mean more to me than—"

"Your medical dictionary?" John asked, gently towelling his hair.

"No—"

"But you love the section on rigor mortis, you've got it earmarked and underlined like it's the bloody Rosetta stone—"

Sherlock snatched the towel away, letting it fall to the floor.

"_Than anything_!" He burst out then added, softer, "You mean more to me than anything. You're like the bloody earth or some ridiculous, unrealistic simile—but it's true because you're so alive and warm, and I'm just a cold uninhabitable moon circling around you and some days I really don't know what you see in me, but I certainly know what I see in you. You are…everything." Sherlock threw his hands out. "Everything." He said, if only because he didn't have anything else to add.

John stared at him a moment and the slow smile on his face made Sherlock's heart want to fly from his chest.

"The moon orbits the Earth." John chuckled, picking up the towel. "Who says you're not learning?"

"You are…vital to my existence, John."

"Oh, more dirty talk." John said, smiling. "You know just what to say to a guy."

"I did not mean it sexually, but if you chose to interpret it that way, I won't argue." Sherlock said, dipping his head and kissing John.

"Sherlock, with the state I'm in, anything we'd do would be quite counterproductive considering the concussion—"

"I could be obliged to—in simple terms—'do all of the work'." Sherlock said, following John into the room, both still quite naked and making no moves to change their state.

"Christ, what monster have I created?" John asked and Sherlock grinned.

"I feel that I should state that I am as equally partial to sexual intercourse as I am to lying next to you and doing nothing but looking at you."

"How about a compromise? We start with the latter, and then see if it changes to the former?"

Sherlock said nothing, lying down on the bed as he clasped his hands over his stomach and shut his eyes, waiting for John to join him, which he did as indicated by a dip in the covers a moment later.

He turned on his side and opened his eyes, greeted by John staring back at him.

"For three years," Sherlock began softly. "When I was alone, when I thought of you-which was quite often, actually, more than I'd tried to-I imagined what this would be like. Being with you."

"Disappointed?"

Sherlock shook his head slightly.

"Gratified. Expectations rarely match up to reality, but this has exceeded what I'd hoped for."

"What did you think the reality would be?"

"That I would return—and I hope you know that I always planned on returning, not just wandering around until we ran into each other, and in _Bruges_ of all places too—but I would come back to find that you'd moved on…to find that you weren't alone."

"Did you want me to be?"

Sherlock's silence could be taken as selfishness, but John knew he was merely reflecting, choosing between what was right to say and what he wanted to.

"No." He said finally. "Even if it meant that we couldn't be together like I wanted, I wouldn't want you to be alone."

John leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to Sherlock's shoulder before lying back, joining him in staring at the ceiling.

"What did you do when you thought of me?"

"Once or twice I tried masturbation, but that was uneventful—"

"Christ Sherlock, I meant did you cry or something, but okay, I guess that's good to know."

Sherlock rolled onto his side, facing John.

"I never considered myself a sexual being before you, John."

"Um…good on you, then."

"I meant it as a compliment."

"Thank you?"

Sherlock reached out and ran a hand down John's side, grazing the end of a whip mark. John shivered.

"So simple, human touch…skin." Sherlock muttered. "Yet it is capable of so many things. Expansion, retraction, burning, healing, scarring, horripilation, blistering…"

"I think I liked you better when you were trying to talk dirty—"

Sherlock hushed him with a kiss.

"It conveys things in such an underrated, unique way. Arousal, attraction, affection, comfort—"

"These your ABCs of things connoted by touch, then?"

"—Without it how would we get anything done?" Sherlock continued as if John hadn't spoken. "I don't think I could ever not touch you." He said, running his hand along the outside of John's leg. "That was the first thing I wondered when we met at St. Bart's. I wondered how the flesh above your heart felt, right above your breastbone. I didn't know the exact location where the bullet had hit you yet, so I resorted to the general area. When I saw it though, for the first time, I wanted to touch it. Dip my fingers in that crater and feel you respond." He let a finger traces the rim of the scar and John sharply sucked in an inhale. "I don't know how I didn't realise what was happening to me, as my fantasies surrounding your scar grew more overt, more…sexual in nature." Sherlock smiled, as if at some in-joke he had with himself. "It began with wondering what it tasted like—" His tongue flicked out and swiped over the raised skin. "Then the sounds you'd make if I bit it." He let his teeth close lightly over it and John groaned.

"Then I graduated to wondering what the head of my cock would look like pressed into it and that's when I realised I loved you. It makes so much sense now, that I'd equate sexual desire with love at first since I didn't know how to differentiate the two, never have experiencing either. But then love gradually eclipsed any sexual desire I had for you. I wanted to kiss you but not fuck you. I wanted to push you against the fridge and taste you but not go any farther. Maybe I was afraid. I don't know. Those months were an emotional blur to be honest. Then at St. Bart's, when I knew I was leaving you, I wanted to tell you everything, but I didn't have the time and much of what I wanted to say was far too inappropriate for my last words to you. Can you imagine if the last thing I'd said to you was 'John, you don't know how long I've wanted you to fuck me'? It would have hurt you too much if I'd told you then that I love you. I wanted you to move on, not stay up at night regretting the missed opportunities that you didn't tell me you love me too."

"Pointless." John said quietly. "I did that anyways. But at least you meant well."

"How is your head?"

John was silent, considering.

"Better. Gravity's working on it again."

"Wonderful. All this talk about not being able to resist touching you has made me feel like a hypocrite."

Sherlock didn't give him a chance to respond as he moved and rolled over him, trapping a laughing John beneath him.

* * *

><p><strong>I'm done with university for the summer, so expect more frequent updates!<strong>

**I thought that even though this chapter is overdue, Sherlock's monologue at the end is quite beautiful. I'm quite proud of it actually, conceived after copious amounts of caffeine during an all-nighter that was supposed to be aimed at finishing a paper.**

**Thank you, thank you, thank you to my loyal minions for always letting me know they're enjoying the story!**


	32. notes

Okay, I lied. I want to see everyone's freak outs about the next chapter.


	33. skeleton man

Zlata Branković, who worked at the front desk, thought the two British men were alright. Handsome, nice, polite (or the shorter one was, rather. The tall one could do to learn some manners).

She just wished they weren't so loud. The walls were quite thin and their room happened to be above hers (family business and all, why rent a house when they had more than enough rooms?).

"_Fuck!"_

She glanced up at the ceiling.

"_Careful, Sherlock! Don't hurt yourself…here, move over a little—oh Christ, like that—"_

A low groan, a deep baritone that she recognised as coming from the rude skeleton man with dark hair.

"_Harder John—"_

Fortunately, Zlata didn't know much English. She may have fainted dead away if she had. She knew quite well what they were doing, though, if the rhythmic thumping was any indication. She'd always insisted to her uncle, the manager, that the headboards were flimsy…

The desk bell rang.

"Zdravo?"

Zlata bolted up, awakened from her dreams of churning machinery that dripped with blood and a voice that spoke to her, dark and heavy, like that of the skeleton man from upstairs. Her father had told her once that hearing a dark voice in a dream meant that something terrible was about to happen because either the Devil or God was speaking to you and only one had anything good to say. She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping it was the latter, before wiping the sweat from her brow, crossing herself, and going to greet whoever was at the desk.

It a boy, not much older than herself, with cropped dishevelled dark hair and even darker, wilder eyes.

"Zdravo." She answered back. "Can I help you?"

The boy's eyes narrowed. She supposed she should see him as a man because of his age, but his face looked so vulnerable, so young—

"Why are you speaking in English?" He asked. His accent was definitely Serbian.

She pointed to the bracelet on his wrist. "Because I do not know German, sir."

He looked down and smiled, as if he'd forgotten.

"Ah. Apologies. Nisam nije nemački."

"Yes, I know, sir."

"You are still speaking English."

"Yes, but only because you are as well."

"Is there a vacancy tonight?" The boy asked, moving his watch over the hospital band as if it were about to give away some large secret.

"Well there are two rooms on the east wing, but they are both a double suite. There is a single on the west end, but it is connected to the suite of two British men who arrived yesterday and…I mean, if you do not mind the noise, I am sure it will be acceptable. Would you like me to book it for you, sir? Sir?"

"Hm?" He looked backed to her from where he stared at the elevator and smiled politely. "Ah, no. No thank you. But could you do me a favour, please?"

"If it is within reason, sir."

He unclipped his bracelet and handed it to her.

"Those British men upstairs? Could you give this to them please?"

Zlata frowned and looked at the bracelet, only understanding 'British' and 'give to'.

* * *

><p>5291142518<p>

DOB: 12/12/1984 24 SX: M RE

Mikhailovic, Mikheia

* * *

><p>She turned it over in her hand and saw a scrawled handwritten message.<p>

She looked up to ask him what it said, but found herself instead staring into the barrel of a gun.

"Ako želite da živite, zaboravi moje lice." The boy smiled, as if he wasn't pointing a gun at her. "Understand?"

She nodded.

"It is not my want to hurt you, but if you tell them who delivered this, I will come back and I will send a bullet into your skull." His smile fell off his face and he motioned towards the phone. "Call them."

Wordlessly, Zlata picked up the phone and dialled the room.

The message was clear enough.

"Hello?"

_Metak_–'bullet'. _Lobanja_–'skull'.

It was the shorter man, the polite blonde, who answered.

"Hello, sir." She began, trying to keep her voice even. Having a gun waved in your face had not been entirely uncommon in her youth, but she had thankfully managed to forget the feeling until now. "If you are at leisure, could you please come downstairs, please? There is a—um—a parcel waiting for you."

"A parcel?" There was a rustling as he got up. "Uh, sure, yeah, alright—Sherlock, _quit it_—Yeah, I'm on my way down."

She hung up the phone and noticed her hand was shaking. She looked to the boy.

"If you are going to shoot me, do it now please."

The boy stared at her and there was something slipping in his eyes that gave him away, like he wasn't fully committed to what he had come to do. He must have seen the realisation dawn on her face.

"Hvala."

It was the last thing she remembered before he fired into her chest.

When she woke up, it was to the polite blonde plucking the tranquiliser from her skin. His warm hand was on her wrist, checking her pulse.

"It's alright, I'm a doctor." He said calmly, his cadence practised and measured, and she trusted him through the haze of a drugged stupor and the language barrier. "Here, ease up, that dart really did a number on you." He helped her sit up against the wall. She didn't understand anything he was saying. "Whatever it was though, it was a mild sedative, and you should be right as rain soon enough." He smiled kindly. His eyes were so blue. He really was quite nice.

"Your—your parcel, it is there—" She managed to get out, pointing to the counter. The man pocketed the dart and reached over to pick up the bracelet. She couldn't see his face, but his posture changed, stiffened. He looked like a soldier.

"Thank you. I'm sorry he hurt you."

"Are you—are you bad?"

He looked back and smiled kindly at her.

"It depends on who you ask."

She closed her eyes for a moment, relishing the thrumming in her chest that meant she was awake—alive but shaken—then opened her eyes.

The lobby was empty and she was alone.

She thought her father had been right, in a way. About the dreams.

Both the Devil and God had spoken to Zlata Branković that night, though in a language she didn't understand.

She didn't know which voice had been the loudest.

* * *

><p>John woke to a blinding light, his own personal sun burning through his eyelids and blaring into his vision. As he came to, he realised it wasn't the sun hovering in their room, but the bedside light, the shade removed so it blared all the brighter. It was raining, the night outside the open window was wet and cool, a damp, easy breeze waving into the room.<p>

There was a soft, wet brushing sensation on his bare back that altered between warm and cool as the air hit it, and he realised that Sherlock was licking him.

"Evening, John." He said, pausing as if he wasn't doing anything unusual.

"Um…good evening?"

"It certainly looks to be." Sherlock chuckled, and John could feel the vibrations humming on his tongue.

"Can you turn the light off?"

"Wanted to see you in a better light." Came the slow response, muttered against the hot skin of John's back.

"Well can you at least put the shade on?"

There was a great sigh as if John was severely inconveniencing him, a sigh usually reserved for interrupted experiments, before the shade was haphazardly tossed back onto the lamp. John felt a great rush of air as Sherlock flopped back onto the bed, his weight resting on his forearms as he dipped his head once more. John's eyes nearly rolled back in his skull as Sherlock laved at a tender mark on the curve of his shoulder, but from pain or pleasure he couldn't tell.

"As pleasant as it is, may I ask why you're doing this?"

"I enjoy the way you taste." Sherlock said matter-of-factly. "Why so surprised?" He added at John's bemused face.

"I'd thought that no one could go through a gauntlet of shagging without tasting…well…_off_."

"No." Sherlock hummed against his skin. "You taste wonderful. Every inch."

"I guess that's good information to have. I'll put it on my resume."

Sherlock raised his head to look at him then, a tight expression on his face.

"Will the agency take you back?"

"The agency?" John laughed. "No, I meant the clinic. I've been gone nearly two weeks with no explanation. If I don't get my pink slip when I get back I'll quit out of shock so they can be rid of me."

Sherlock relaxed.

"I'm sure Mycroft will be perfectly happy giving you a job."

"No thanks." John said dryly. "I wouldn't want to accuse him of nepotism."

"He won't have a choice." Sherlock said, letting his tongue run over a mark on John's side. "He'll see me blissfully shagged out, a state he's never had the chance to see me in, and I rather think he'll collapse to his knees in front of you and cry from relief."

"And then order a cake?"

Sherlock chuckled lowly. "Yes. And then order a cake."

"That'd be a sight, wouldn't it? I think he'd have the baker write something clinical like 'Congratulations on the Coital Bliss'."

"'My Compliments on Your Intercourse'."

"'You Had Sex'."

John felt a breath of laughter against his skin and he smiled.

"Was it—I mean, was it good for you?" He asked quietly.

"Having no prior experience, I'd have to answer in the affirmative."

"Oh you can fuck right off. You know what I meant."

"I did enjoy it, yes." Sherlock admitted. "And yourself?"

"Well obviously you enjoyed it enough. You initiated it three times more afterwards—"

Sherlock huffed in irritation. "The question, John."

"Why does it matter if I did?"

"Because a partnership becomes a parasitic relationship and a huge waste of time if the pleasure is not reciprocal."

"I mean, you heard me." John mumbled, feeling his face flame. "Obviously…I like it a bit…"

"Yes, you are the loquacious type."

"Are you still treating me like a Cornetto back there?"

John was answered by a long wet lick along the side of his right shoulder.

"It's really quite masterful, if you look at it objectively." Sherlock said. "The scars, I mean."

"Wonderful." John replied dryly. "Remind me to get them appraised."

"Look—feel the way this one curves around the anterior, near the subscapularis." Sherlock gently traced the curve of John's right shoulder blade, eliciting a shudder out of him. "And here, around the opposite, yet they were careful not to hit your scar tissue from your bullet wound. Notice how the mark tapers off sharply, like they drew it up before hitting it—this is _fascinating_, John, I could do this for hours."

"Well I hope you've had your fun."

"Why?" Sherlock said, sounding like a petulant child. "Are you not having any?"

"Being reminded of one's torture is not what I'd call _fun_."

"I am…sorry, John. I didn't realise."

"It's okay."

"It was not my intention to make you feel pain. You hurt because of these, yes, but they are also beautiful."

"Beautiful." John snorted. "How are they beautiful?"

"Well," Sherlock began, "This one, wrapping itself around the subscapularis anterior shoulder, was the first, was it not?"

"Yes."

John sucked in a breath as Sherlock gently nuzzled it.

"It tastes the sweetest." He breathed before moving on. "And its twin, it was next?"

"I don't remember."

"_Gorgeous_." Sherlock murmured, placing an open-mouthed kiss on it. "If anything it highlights your features, your lovely bone structure, instead of detracting from it—"

A sudden thought occurred to John.

"Are you—are you getting off from my injuries?"

"If I didn't get off from thoughts of your death, why would your injuries be any different since they brought you that much closer to that particular fantasy becoming a reality?"

Sherlock sounded so annoyed that John nearly forgot that he was the one who had the right to be offended in their petty feud.

"This here…" Sherlock said lowly, letting his fingers graze over a wound John couldn't see. "It's in Serbian."

"You don't know Serbian—"

Sherlock leaned forward, staring down at John's nape as his lips brushed his ear.

"Me briga za ništa kako ja radim za vas." He said quietly, running his thumb over the scar above John's ear.

John supressed the urge to jump him and fuck him so hard he'd limp for a week.

"Okay, so you know Serbian…" He admitted glumly.

"Why did your tone lower in the manner of patients suffering from depression?"

"I really wanted to fuck you just now. _Hard_." John added, as if his point wasn't clear.

"And we aren't currently doing that because…"

John managed to turn himself over onto his back, the sheets sticking to the trails of thin saliva Sherlock had left.

"You know," He grinned. "I haven't the foggiest."

Near the end, after Sherlock had managed to kiss every inch of John's body into a humming arousal, after he had clambered once more in John's lap and let John open him up, after they both had groaned and shared a messy kiss between them as John pushed up and in, after Sherlock's hands had flown out to the headboard in a white-knuckled grip as they writhed and moved and ground together, they managed to make so much noise that the poor woman downstairs could hear them, although neither knew it.

Sherlock's blissful sigh that had escaped as he came into John's mouth still hung in the air as the phone rang. Groaning, John rolled over and picked it up.

"H'lo?"

"Hello, sir." It was the young woman from the front desk. There was something off about her voice, it was too monotonous, too…detached. "If you are at leisure, could you please come downstairs, please? There is a—um—a parcel waiting for you."

"A parcel?" He tossed back the sheets, feeling a rush of cool air disperse in the pockets of the blankets where his and Sherlock's body heat still mingled. "Uh, sure, yeah, alright—" Sherlock leaned over and placed a sharp bite to his shoulder blade, catching the edge of one of the cuts. "Sherlock, _quit it_—Yeah, I'm on my way down."

He hung up the phone and stood, stretching out the kinks in his muscles, a cool feeling of calmness rushing through him.

"Endorphins." Sherlock said from the bed.

"No shit." John chuckled. "Have you seen my trousers anywhere?"

"By the dresser." Sherlock said lazily, rolling onto his back and spreading all of his limbs over the bed. "You could just go down as you are, you know."

"Can't go down in my pants, that's for sure. I'd mortify that poor girl to death."

"I think we already did that, John. She sleeps right below us and they hired an architect who likes thin, cheap building material. And obviously since she called she's still quite alive, so she seems to be made of stronger stuff than you give her credit for."

"Oh, shut it." John murmured before he leaned over the edge of the bed and placed a soft kiss on Sherlock's cheek. Sherlock turned his head at the last moment and their mouths slanted against each other.

John jolted as the elevator lurched beneath him, still not used to the loud banging sound as the machinery whirred. It sounded too much like gunfire for his liking and he didn't much care for the sudden reflex to duck and cover.

The doors opened and he stepped into the lobby, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up at the still silence.

He approached the desk.

"Excuse me—oh bugger—"

The young woman who had checked them in was lying unconscious, crumpled against the wall, a small dart sticking out from her chest. A dart that looked all too unsettlingly familiar to the one he had plucked from his shoulder a week ago, when he was trapped in the bowels of the Kremlin.

_No—that can't be —_

He kneeled in front of her and gently plucked it out right as she began to stir.

"It's alright, I'm a doctor." He said calmly, employing what Sherlock referred to as his doctor voice. The voice that would tell you everything would be fine, even if you were bleeding out in front of him and you were missing a leg.

The woman groaned softly and moved to sit up.

"Here, ease up, that dart really did a number on you." He helped prop her up against the wall. "Whatever it was though, it was a mild sedative, and you should be right as rain soon enough."

"Your—your parcel, it is there—" She pointed to the counter and John marvelled at her dedication. Whatever it was, it must be important, otherwise—

A bracelet? He left a shagged-out and thoroughly calmed Sherlock for a—

_Oh._

His thumb traced Mikheia's name.

"Thank you." He heard himself say. "I'm sorry he hurt you."

"Are you—are you bad?"

She sounded so frightened. He looked over his shoulder and smiled, but it felt like battery acid on his tongue.

"It depends on who you ask."

Her head lolled back onto the wall and he took his cue to leave. She would no doubt make a full recovery and he had greater things to worry about.

So Moran had Mikheia, or at least some form of leverage over him. That was bad, very bad.

Or…Mikheia was here? But that didn't make any sense, why would he be? And if he was, how the _hell_ did he know where they were staying? Why hadn't he rung them up and said he was in town?

He'd tell Sherlock. Sherlock would know exactly what to make of all this, especially what had been written on the back of that bracelet—

John had barely begun to piece the puzzle together when the elevator stopped with a bang at his floor and he cursed, stepping out and shouting profanities at it.

Then he noticed the door to their room was cracked open. He hadn't left it like that…he had most definitely shut it—

A cold dread began to work its way through his body.

"Sherlock?" He asked as he pushed the door open, already fearing what he would see. "_Sherlock_!"

The first thing he noticed was the open window, the curtains still fluttering in the damp wind from where they lay, torn off the rack in the struggle.

The room was empty.

He stepped over a chair, overturned on the floor.

The room was _empty_.

The bed had spots of blood on it.

Empty.

There was a note on the bedside table.

_I had to clean up his body. Now it's your turn_.

Moran didn't need to sign it for John to know who it was from.


	34. the end of the minor man

"**War is nothing but boys trying to comfort themselves in the wilderness."**

– hyacinth_sky747, "What to do When Your Flatmate is Homicidal"

* * *

><p>The dark room stirred with thin, spicy smoke, the wisps trailing from a hand-rolled cigarette dangling from a stubbled, bloodied mouth.<p>

"Then what happened?" A light voice asked with lilting, disinterested cadence.

The man shrugged, taking a long drag without lifting his hands.

"Did you kill him?"

Silence.

"The Golem? Did you kill him?"

"Do you care?" The man bit back. "It's not like you got anything out of it."

"I was heavily invested."

"With what?" The man's head turned, slathering his face in shadow. "Money?"

The voice chuckled.

"How quickly that mind of yours turns green. No, not _money_. I have enough of that. Something substantially more valuable."

The mouth grins, a wet, shiny red.

"He's dead. Caught him in the jugular."

"Hidden blade?"

"Naturally."

"And our doctor attended to him?"

"Yes."

"You did well, Seb."

Smoke breathed out from bloody lips. Dark eyes turned upward.

"Thank you."

Soft fingers reached out to graze over the redness.

"I can take care of that, if you like."

"I'm fine." He said, jerking his face back. "Just a scratch. I wasn't expecting the night guard."

The hand withdrew.

"Suit yourself." The voice said quietly, turning away. "You don't have to trust me anymore, but at least let me help you—"

"Why did we have to share?" Moran cut across quietly.

"We didn't share." The voice smirked. "Usually one of us won and one lost. Never in-between."

"If we had, would we still have ended up this way?"

A slow, still exhale.

"Yes."

"I don't regret it." He said. "Not the work or the blood. Not you, however long that took getting used to."

It was quiet for a moment, nothing but the sound of burning paper.

"Nothing that has happened to me since and nothing that will ever happen after will ever compare to what we have now."

"And what is it that we have?"

"You really want to name it?"

"No. There's not one I can use."

"We are parts of a whole that happen to fit together. We are…incomplete."

"We are, aren't we? Nothing's been the same since." He exhaled a stream of smoke and stubbed the cigarette out. "Nothing will ever be the same. But I'll manage. You too, I'm betting."

"We are equals, Sebastian Moran. Do not confuse it for devotion."

"Didn't say I did."

"Your eyes do."

He closed them.

When he opened them a second later, he was alone.

* * *

><p>John had wasted precious minutes sitting and staring at the blood on the bed. He could barely move himself to breathe. He wasn't as excellent at deduction at Sherlock, but he was alright—good, even—when it mattered.<p>

The sheets, though bloody, were also wet and dirtied on the edges. They had come in through the open window. They were also unnaturally undisturbed, and though copious amounts of fucking had occurred on them, they hadn't been tossed over or used, so that meant there wasn't much of a fight from Sherlock's end. Moran had done his research; he'd been prepared. Moriarty would've been proud. Sherlock's clothes were gone. John hardly thought they'd have had the time to knock him out and re-dress him, so he settled for the theory that they simply put a pair of pants or trousers on him and bundled the rest or they took him nude, but either way their escape vehicle was close by. John would be surprised if it wasn't the SUV he'd seen earlier.

He stared back down at the note.

Moran was going to make him clean up Sherlock's body. He'd always wondered who had gotten Moriarty's off the roof; in the ensuing grief, he'd never thought to ask, but it was incredibly obvious. Lestrade had once mentioned the lack of a body, but John hadn't been listening. He'd never been listening, not when all he could hear was the crunch of bone and smell the wet pavement. He heard it every day, every night, right up until the church bells chimed and the crunch never came but shattered on the floor at feet of Sherlock Holmes and John could hear everything again. He heard his deep breaths as he tried to breathe, heard his soft sobs, heard the fabric of his jacket scrape against the rough brick as he leaned against it and asked himself if Sherlock's hair had always been that dark, had he always been that pale, or was John imagining things again?

He'd burst out of the open water he'd been treading in for three years. He heard Sherlock's voice, heard the swish of his coat (not the collared trench, but one that still looked suitably good; hell anything looked good on him) heard the sigh he made when the kissed, the groans when they fucked, heard the slide of sweat and blissed out light that coated them.

He would not go back underwater after this. Maybe before, when he had nothing to lose, before, when Sherlock had been nothing more than a ghost. Maybe then he'd raise his head like an alligator and peer at his surroundings only to find nothing he liked and slide back under. Maybe.

But not now.

His gun was still in his bag. They hadn't had the time or foresight to find it.

He shrugged on his black jacket, stolen from the man he was about to call.

He stared at the bed as the phone rang. At those great circles of blood, those splashes that meant Sherlock was hurt, not injured per se, but _hurt_. Someone hurt him. And they would pay.

Taking the loved one of an international assassin was never a good idea.

* * *

><p>It was still raining when John shut the door to the taxi. How appropriate. It had been romantic at first, when Sherlock had been in his arms, safe, but now it seemed too wet and cold.<p>

Finding the hideout had been easy enough with Mycroft's help. Moran's group had left Sherlock's phone in his pocket or on their person, and tracking it had been child's play for the elder Holmes' network. Especially when his baby brother's life was at stake.

John knew Moran was waiting inside for him. To kill him. Why else would he take Sherlock but to bait John in by threatening his safety? They were going to kill him, maybe even in front of Sherlock, which was the icing on Moran's fucking cake. But, if it saved his life, John would die a thousand deaths.

It was selfish, if nothing else, to die so that someone else may live. Sherlock would feel as John did, know his pain of losing the one he loved most, but there would be no coming back. At least they still had those golden moments, beams of light in the storm. At least Sherlock could live off those memories, off the kisses and the knowledge that John loved him with everything he was. John hadn't been granted that amenity after Bart's, and if he could live off nothing, maybe then Sherlock could sustain himself on what he'd been given.

He hoped.

John stood in that drizzling rain, took in a deep breath of damp, fresh air.

Was this what Sherlock had known, what he had felt going up those stairs to the roof of St. Bart's? That he was going to die? It was an odd feeling, a stranger smudged among familiar thoughts. It felt cold and empty, bells clanging tightly inside his gut.

He exhaled and looked up at the building, on the outskirts of the city in the wartime industrial section that had long ago been blessedly forgotten. He almost expected lightning to ominously silhouette the abandoned munitions factory. The Miljacka River ran behind it, the waters unnaturally high from the unceasing rain, flood-like for a Sarajevo that was used to four inches of water, not 132.

Could he just walk through the door or would that be considered a faux pas?

He stared up at the entrance.

It wasn't like they weren't expecting him, to be honest.

He walked in through the front door.

The lobby was empty, dark. Two hallways branched either way at the back, with a large, thick metal door slathered in chipping blue paint dead ahead of him, the shadows of the machinery on the factory floor visible just behind it.

He went to the left, into a dark corridor spotted with doors. Sherlock could be behind any of them. Or Moran. Or both.

Tentatively, he tried the nearest one. Broom closet. Safe.

He moved on to the next. Office. Empty. Safe.

He stalked along the wall towards the next door. Jiggled the handle carefully. Unlocked.

He opened it, letting the door turn away before he followed his gun in.

Sherlock's slumped figure was silhouetted against the light that poured in.

"Sherlock…" His name fell from John's mouth like a benediction.

He stirred, raised his head as John walked towards him. He had blood on his face.

"Sherlock—"

His widening, impossibly blue eyes—so pale like lightning—were the last thing John remembered, subtitled by the realisation that he hadn't checked behind the door.

Then, unconsciousness.

* * *

><p>Sherlock stared at John's body, hands clenched into fists at his sides. A cold fury pulsed through him, making his limbs feel like frozen, hollow metal. How <em>dare<em> they hurt him again? Hadn't they done enough last time?

"Hands on your head." A voice commanded. He hadn't even realised they were in the room. His eyes were on John. There wasn't any superficial damage that he could see, no blood visible, good, that meant—

The voice repeated themselves.

Sherlock would rather smash his fist in their face. Or throw himself over John. Or both.

"If you touch him again," He snarled. "Rest assured I will—"

He heard a gun point itself (presumably and judging by the arc and the lack of confidence of the assailant at making a lethal shot) at the back of his head.

"Hands. On. Your. Fucking. Head."

Sherlock did as he asked, shifting closer to John as if to shield him. It was the only thing he could do.

"Ah, Mr Holmes don't think your priorities aren't so transparent. Back away from him or I send two in his skull."

Sherlock bit back the obvious retort: _Why two when one will do the job? You're not very efficient with cost management, are you?_

But that would only expedite John's end, and that was one thing Sherlock could not abide by. He stared down at his doctor. He looked so young when he was asleep—strike that—unconscious. The lines that came with worrying over Sherlock were gone.

"You won't. You need him alive."

Talking, yes. Talking was good. Talking would keep John breathing longer. He wished he was certain that what he was saying had validity, but he was about to find out.

He turned around.

"You put a bullet in his skull and they'll surely put one in yours, won't they?"

"That's for me to know, and you to find out then, innit?"

Sherlock wanted to roll his eyes and spout theories on just how inbred this man's family must be, or otherwise how uneducated, but if anything that would hinder him rather than help—

The door opened then and another figure let themselves in.

"He's asking for John now."

Sherlock didn't need to see them to know they had a gun in their hands as well. He didn't need to see them to know who they were.

The man nodded, took two strides across the small room and slung John roughly over his shoulder.

"_Careful_ you gracelessly incompetent block of space, he's had recent head trauma!" Sherlock bit out. If he couldn't physically help John, verbal abuse might at least make him feel better. "If you want him alive, you never do that again you great idiot!"

The man looked like he was going to swing John back down and toss him across the room if his face was any indication.

"No." The other voice said, stopping him. "He must be unhurt. Take him."

Sherlock could only watch as John's slumped figure was carried out of his sight.

The door shut with a resounding bang, silence billowing in the cool air.

"I've read into you, Mary Morstan." He said quietly, still facing the door.

She stepped from the shadows behind him, and he could hear the smile on her face.

"And what have you read, exactly, Sherlock Holmes?"

* * *

><p><em>"Tell me." The voice said. It was dark, feral, dangerous.<em>

_"I already did!" The man gasped. "I don't know, I don't know what they are doing—"_

_"They won't be happy with what you've already told me, so you may as well continue. Now...tell me." The voice said more forcefully, followed by a cry of pain._

_"Conditioning!" The man groaned. "It was conditioning."_

_"Why?"_

_Silence._

_"To see how far they could push you. How far you'd go when you were unstable. If you would forget your morals."_

_"What are they planning next?"_

_"They're going to try to break you."_

_"Break me?" The voice barked in amusement. "They're going to have to find me first."_

_The voice leaned in close to his face. He could feel their breath, cold on his cheek._

_"Tell them I'll be waiting." The voice hissed._

_Something sliced through the man's bonds and they fell to the floor, clattering in the darkness._

_The door slammed shut._

* * *

><p>John woke with a start, the slam ringing in his ears far longer than normal or needed. He did not miss or appreciate the irony that he had just overcome one concussion only to possibly enter another.<p>

Always that room, always the darkness…why was the rest blurred, why did it shimmer in his mind like he was opening his eyes underwater?

Those gaps in his memory bothered him. He wouldn't even have known they existed if he hadn't realised time had passed between his descent and rise from the Kremlin.

He remembered fear and pain, bright in their coldness, but distant, moonlight hitting an ice floe. He doesn't remember feeling it. Did someone else, by his hand? That'd be interesting: if the agency had made him an empath. He'd always wanted to be a hero. The tights would have to go, though.

Oh, god, that concussion must be bad. He had to focus.

Where was he?

Opening his eyes would be a good place to start.

He cracked them open and nearly cursed at the light that spilled in. Was it possible to hate inanimate objects? John discovered that no, it was not.

"Hello, darling." A sandpaper voice said to him. "Good to see you join us."

As his vision cleared, he wished he was asleep again.

Pain began to course through his body, as if his mind had been trying to ward it off until the last possible moment. A soft pain, an ache of reopened wounds, yet he couldn't feel any blood sticking his shirt to his skin. His bullet wound burned.

He realised he was hanging by his arms, hands cuffed together, the chain arced over the hook of a raised crane in the middle of the empty factory floor. His feet barely touched the concrete.

Moran smiled, sitting in front of him.

"Figured it all out, have you?"

"A bit." John managed to bite out through gritted teeth. "If you're going to kill me, just do it quickly."

Moran scoffed.

"That's what everybody wants, John. Surely you know that you can't always get what you want. And furthermore, who said I wanted to kill you?"

"That's what you want, isn't it?" John groaned, head lolling forward briefly before falling back to stare at the high ceiling. "It's why you took Sherlock earlier."

"Your line of thought is that I need a reason." Moran said darkly. "You might want to rethink that."

"I always thought you were a bit like Jim."

Moran stared at him coldly before taking the rolled cigarette from the crook of his ear and lighting it.

"Have you ever loved, John Watson?"

* * *

><p>Moran stared at the wall. Brought a cigarette to his lips with a still, blood-slicked hand.<p>

There'd been no clean exit wound. Of course not, not at that distance. He was used to quiet entry, soft exit, at distances where you couldn't see the brain gush out of the hole you created, where you weren't close enough to distinguish blood and brain from bits of skull.

He was used to abrasion collaring, not stellates. Halos ringing around the bullet wound, not those bursting black stars that turned to a burst brain that led to a bursting heart. He thought he was dying up there, on that high ledge that felt so comfortable because he was above everyone else once more, yet he felt as if he was below them, far below, somewhere dark and cold and painful. He tasted the sands of Afghanistan again, and they burned his throat, burned like so much inhaled smoke, burned like the hot sun, burned like the blank eyes of Jim Moriarty.

Jim had said they wouldn't get a happy ending.

He liked to say that often, as if to remind them, as if they could forget. _People like us, they don't get happy endings_. Didn't stop them though. Nothing stopped them from fucking until they bled or biting a lip between their teeth or bruising skin with angry, volatile punches. They were embroiled in the sun and it felt like a glorious becoming. Then Sherlock Holmes had come along and eclipsed that world. Jim's interest waned towards the gravity of the brighter star. Yet still Sebastian stayed, as he had when his father beat his mother into a coma, as he had when she died and his father was imprisoned, as he had when he had become a ward of the state because, if Jim had ever said anything correct about his insight into Moran's character, it was that he was a stray that dedicated its love to whomever decided to feed it. And Jim had offered the fullest meals.

Moran would be lying if he said he wasn't envious towards the detective. Who wouldn't be? He was everything Jim wanted, and that was nothing he saw in Sebastian Moran. But Sherlock had the love of John Watson tether him to the ground, whereas Jim had severed those chains long ago, not wanting to be tied down by anything. Sherlock's weakness and his salvation. Jim didn't like the word. He thought he didn't need it. Sebastian didn't want to give him salvation. He wanted to go along for the ride.

That didn't stop him from caring. Was that what caring was, that obsessive need to protect Jim? To be around him at all times, watching the intelligence flicker behind dark eyes? To invest himself in the existence of another? He didn't know.

John Watson. Such an odd little man. Moran had known him briefly when their tours intersected, but didn't remember if he had thought anything of him, which told him all he needed to know about his feelings towards him. Insignificant. Not heavy enough to leave an imprint. This made him unable to understand Jim's obsession with John's demise at first. Why would Jim lower himself to pay attention to the end of such a minor man? And furthermore, what did that mean for Moran himself, that Jim would no longer even give him the time of day unless it benefited him, dedicating himself instead to rather lower investments?

Then he understood. Get to John, get Sherlock. Crack the egg, get the omelette. John meant nothing to Jim, only his influence on Sherlock did, and if Moran ever wept over anything, it would have been that realisation. It was a beautiful thing, to know that he was the only soldier in his madman's life. John had his place, and Moran had his.

His damned_ nobleness_ made Moran want to vomit. The thought that there was good and bad and that was all. Nothing in-between. Bullshit. There were murderers with families, priests with secrets, nuns with children. Nothing was ever black and white. If anything, all was grey. Grey lives in grey cities on grey earth. Only the light of the brilliant ever shone brightly and, like moths to flame, Moran drew himself to the gleaming darkness of Jim Moriarty that shone like hot blood under moonlight. It was hard not to feel drawn to him, to his sparkling charisma, to his dark mind, to his bloody ambition. He wanted chaos. Sebastian liked that most about him.

Now, though. Now he was alone. Set on the path to fire with no one to light the match. But he would burn everything, he would set up the pyre and burn John Watson if it was the last thing he ever did for Jim Moriarty. That was what he had always wanted, and if Moran could give it to him, perhaps a little later than he could have, then he would. But it would take time. Years. He'd do it though. For Jim.

He hadn't loved him, but for a man that had never loved anything, he had come close.

It was an odd feeling.

He'd never experienced it before.

Heartbreak.

* * *

><p>"Have you ever loved, John Watson? I'm sure you have."<p>

Moran stopped to take a long drag. "If not your parents or your sister, then certainly Sherlock Holmes." He sighed, smoke drifting from his lips. "You are a man who falls in love easily, quickly, shallowly, and then once it's done you toss it away. But Sherlock Holmes…he's open water, isn't he? All treading, feet never touching the bottom…You get exhausted quickly, surrounded by so much with no land in sight." He rolled up his sleeve, hot ash falling onto the cool floor. "I felt like you did sometimes. Swallowed up by the darkness, the honeyed genius. It gets addicting, doesn't it? To have someone need us again."

"Did he? Need you?"

"I don't know. On good days, I suppose he did. Most days, he just tolerated me. I always wanted more. Didn't want to share." His eyes turned to John. "Then your madman came along and I knew I was done. Jim looked at him in ways he never looked at me. In ways Sherlock looked at you." Moran shook his head. "I was pushed aside, but I stayed because dedication is something you and I are quite good at. They needed soldiers, and there we sat, waiting for them."

"Are you going to kill him?" John asked through the tightness of his chest.

"Sherlock? Maybe. It's you I'm after. If you wanted to be poetic, I can kill him without even touching him. Jim always knew we had to use you to get to him."

"So there's no chance of you letting me go."

Moran barked out a laugh.

"You, John Watson? You? The man I spent three years setting up your fall? No. No, there is no chance I'm digging my claws out of you."

His words were blurry, slightly slurred. Cigarettes didn't do that.

Pain had consumed every cell in his body, his arms straining until they were numb, his chest curling into itself even more, tightening his lungs and making his heart pound. It was getting harder to breathe.

John had always had good upper body strength.

As quietly as he could, he gripped either end of his cuffs and began to swing himself back and forth. As he gained momentum, Moran realised what he was doing and stood, yet John had already gathered enough force to hit the cabin of the crane he was hanging from and kick off of it, swinging towards Moran as he stood and catching him underneath the chin with a vicious kick.

Moran was knocked back onto the floor in a spray of blood and John willed all of his energy to look up. The chain of the cuffs was weakening under his weight. His left shoulder burned horribly, a deep, hot pain burning where that bullet once did. He'd have to find a way to get down before Moran got back up or his shoulder gave out.

He gripped the sides of the cuffs again and pulled up before letting his whole weight drop. The chain was straining, bending under the stress. He pulled up and dropped once more and it snapped, sending him tumbling to the floor. He took a few precious seconds to breathe a great lungful of air again as blood pounded again in his arms, pulsing like a gush of cool water.

Moran began to stir and John took his signal to leave.

He could have shot him, looking back on it. He should have.

But he had to find Sherlock first.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry for the delay! This is a much longer wait than you've had so far...I hope it's worth it! The next chapter is the end!<strong>


	35. ps

Hello all! Sorry that this is another note, but apparently a bunch of people's fics are getting taken down for being (an unallowed) rated MA. I just wanted to let you know that, if _Eosophobia_ is (because let's face it, it's quite MA), you can find me under the same author name on Archive of Our Own (here: archiveofourown works/ 400504/ chapters/ 659658).

I love you all! Looking forward to the end of _Eosophobia_ (and it's sequel) and the continuance of _Come Back_!

Have a wonderful day!


	36. hyacinth

"Angels fall to earth

World heats down

Now your heart is cold

Waiting on the summer

Of my soul

Gotta wait

On the samhain of my soul

Gonna bring your world

Down in fire"

"Soul on Fire" – EMA (Danzig cover)

* * *

><p><em>"I've read into you, Mary Morstan."<em>

_"And what have you read, exactly, Sherlock Holmes?"_

Sherlock stared at her, at Mary Morstan, John's constant companion through those lonely years, Sherlock's substitute.

"That you are not who you appear to be."

"What am I then?" She asked pleasantly.

Sherlock turned, his face full of coldness.

"A liar."

"I hate to burst that positively_ model_ veneer of the world you must live in, but everyone is a liar."

"Some more than others." Sherlock replied taciturnly.

"Looks like the pot's calling the kettle black, Mr Holmes."

"I never claimed I was a saint." Sherlock sniffed. "But accusing me does not absolve you of what you've done."

"I believe I have the right to know the crimes I'm being accused of?" Mary said, her chin tilting up in an attempt to look innocent. They never learned that acting led them nowhere, only in circles. "That's what they do with war crimes, isn't it?

"I first toyed with the idea when Moran told John that his sparring had gotten sloppy." Sherlock began, leaving her question both answered and unanswered. "He said 'I wouldn't bet on him remembering that bit'. What event was extreme enough where John wouldn't remember? I could only think of one." Sherlock's sharp gaze turned to her. "The Kremlin. The only area of memory where John draws a blank. Nothing, not one thing in three years, escapes him except those meager hours he spent locked into a gurney waiting for you to save him until he decided to save himself. And, as I understand it, you responded quite quickly. Within minutes. 'What on earth caused you to be so fast?' I wondered. Then it came to me. You were waiting for his call."

_She leaned against the old stone wall and smiled as her phone began to ring._

"If he was as valuable as you claim, what were you waiting for? An engraved invitation to raid the place? My brother's permission? But you wouldn't care for that. Mycroft is just a walrus in a suit to you."

"You act like the people you love mean nothing to you, Mr Holmes, but we both know they mean everything—"

"Trying to bait me by reminding me of their existence won't work." Sherlock snapped. "And you've gotten me off my train of thought, which makes you rude as well. No, you, you were waiting to see if John was capable enough to get himself out. And he passed with flying colours."

"He did."

"That night in Bruges, if you remember, while John was showering, you woke up and I asked you about his actions during my absence. You told me them in such an abridged way that I was left to wonder if you'd shared with me everything that you, as John's closest friend outside of myself, would have felt the responsibility to share. I asked you if anyone would be coming after John for his betrayal and you told me that it depended on just whose orders he had shied from.

"And, I have to admit, you baffled me there. I spent my time at Mycroft's in supreme agitation because you had given me a puzzle that I could not solve: John's history during my exile. But then John showed up at the door, bloodied and half-dead, and I had greater things to worry about, more important things, but when I realised no other evaluation seemed to be working, fortune smiled upon me in the form of Mikeia Mikhailovic's hospital band." Sherlock drew it from his pocket, reading the back. "'Scan me.'"

He did not miss the colour leaving Mary's face.

"It seems that despite your agency's exhaustive intricacies, your skills of coercion still need a bit of work." He said, unable to keep the smirk from his face. "Mikheia was never yours. He will never be yours."

_Sherlock looked at Mikheia, swathed in a hospital gown that made him look smaller than he was._

"_You wouldn't say yes, because even though you are angry at me you don't have the nature to seek revenge on me or on John since you think maybe one day you can join us like you're hoping and you don't want to ruin your chances."_

_Sherlock knocked away the call button that Mikheia was reaching for._

_"Mikheia, you aren't that petty as to end a conversation because you don't care for its results."_

_As he drew away, he tucked a folded note between the bed and the call button._

Sherlock smiled grimly. "I'm afraid a madman got to him first."

_Mikheia found the note the next morning after he woke when he leaned over to call for a pitcher of water._

_His name is Moran. He will say he has your mother and sister. Do not trust him. Do not follow me. Do not worry. John and I will come back for you. It was always my intention to come back for you._

_Sherlock Holmes_

* * *

><p><em>"My name is Moran. Sebastian Moran. I have a proposition for you. And I can guarantee that you are not going to say no to me."<em>

Mikheia stared back at him.

"You are not here to offer me money." Mikheia concluded quietly. "You want my help, but you do not intend to pay me for it." His eyes turned dark. "You are threating me."

"It's not your life that you need to worry about so much as your mother's and sister's."

Mikheia gripped the note in his hand.

Flashes of movement. Moran was too close. An invasion of space that politeness usually leaves empty. His breath smelled of stale tobacco. His pores secreted the sweat of desperation, bitter and pungent.

"You will be emitted tomorrow since that's more of a flesh wound than a festering bullet." He said in that low, scratchy voice that made Mikheia think of darkness that pulsed with evil. "And unless you get on the train I tell you to, you'll find yourself with another bullet wound to worry about. And make no mistake, I don't miss twice."

He moved away. His movements hadn't been subtle enough for Mikheia to not notice him switching his hospital band with another. He'd relied too heavily that Mikheia would be shocked that he was speaking to the man who shot him. But he couldn't know that he'd already done that, seven years ago, right before blood splattered on his face and he went home and made sure not to tell his mother the truth of how he got the thick, rounded wound in his side. He had gone to bed that night in the worst pain of his life, a pain in his chest that felt like his soul had been poisoned, and woke up with a raw throat, a burn in the soft skin of his hip, and tears on his face. His sister had glanced questioningly at him at breakfast but hadn't said anything until the early hours of the next morning, when she cried for him at his hospital bed because she thought the new hole in his chest was a bullet wound that she'd been afraid would come one day.

This man did not scare him. He had seen worse things.

"What if I were to stay here?" He asked quietly, staring into those light eyes that bespoke blackness.

Moran grinned.

"If you would be so cold as to risk the life of your family, then perhaps you belong on my side."

* * *

><p>Sherlock eyed the bracelet in his hand.<p>

"5-2-9-1-14-25-18." He read off the front. "His admissions code. Such a meaningless sequence of numbers to anyone other than myself. And to you as well, I suppose, since you constructed it to track him after he left. Meaningless…at least until it led me to a bank account of one Ryan John Bise." Sherlock smirked as the colour drained from Mary's face yet she said nothing. "You relied too heavily on recycling your account numbers. You were careless, thinking that no one would check.

"Imagine my surprise when, upon pulling up Ryan John Bise's wedding registry, I find your name. Mary Morstan. Widowed after four months of marriage. I take it the honeymoon didn't last long, then? Or did you meet someone else? Someone who fulfilled your depraved needs with his own? Someone who fed off your love and attention like a parasite and rewarded you with the kind of love only reserved for psychotics? Someone who offered you an escape from a marriage you didn't really want in the first place?"

"I didn't cheat on him, if that's what you're implying—"

"There is more than one way to be unfaithful, Mary Morstan." Sherlock said darkly before his expression calmed. "And you were quite unfaithful to say the least. Oh, but you were so clever." He whispered with something akin to reverence in his voice. "Letting John think that silly four number code was his idea—no harm in a special code between friends—when you yourself had used it as an anagram to conceal your past, making it so obvious that no one would suspect it, hiding there in plain sight. You were _so_ clever, using your powers of persuasion to get close to John so you could destroy him where it hurt most, and, upon finding out his sexual preference didn't lean your way no matter how many cleavage-bearing shirts you wore or how much you smiled at him, you decided to take a different approach. You gained his trust. And isn't that worth more than any other kind of pain you could cause him?"

"I didn't want to cause _him _pain." Mary said monotonously, her large eyes turning up to his. "He is where you hurt most, Sherlock Holmes. He told me once that you said you didn't have a heart, but that he thought you were wrong. I want what Jim wanted. I want to burn you, inside and out."

"As there was Jim Moriarty," Sherlock said quietly, "so there too were his helpers. Moran…and Morstan."

Mary eyed him over before speaking.

"John told me about your tantrums, so I know that you understand me when I talk about boredom. About having nothing to do with yourself. You think John was the only one who found meaning in following a mad genius around? And, in the end, Jim was cleverer than you. He outsmarted you."

Sherlock made a face.

"Ah, wrong."

"What?"

"Wrong." He repeated calmly. "You are wrong. Jim did not outsmart me. Obviously, since I'm alive—"

"Didn't he, Sherlock?"

This wasn't overconfidence. This was knowing something Sherlock didn't know, something he had yet to realise.

"What did you do, Mary?"

"I've been beaten by the great Sherlock Holmes." Mary said quietly. "A feat that destroys his victims as surely as it guarantees their infamy. But what can he do when the victim is clever enough to destroy him?"

"Jim is dead, Mary. What did you do?"

"He was on the right track though, wasn't he? Strapping those bombs to John, aiming a rifle at him, threatening him, making you realise just how human you are—"

Blood thrummed in Sherlock's ears and the next thing he knew, he had tackled Mary to the ground and pinned her.

"_What did you do_?"

"Hyacinth—" She coughed, gasped through the sudden lack of air pushed out of her by Sherlock's weight. "What happened to Hyacinth? The human man that came between two gods?"

For once, all thought in the mind of the great Sherlock Holmes ceased.

He scrambled up, his long legs bringing him to the door as he flew into the hallway, leaving Mary on the floor to pull out her mobile.

* * *

><p>Sherlock was in the middle of a dead sprint out of the main factory to the ammunitions plant when he heard it.<p>

A single gunshot.

It rang out through the empty night, freezing Sherlock in his tracks and sending a flock of crows fleeing into the quiet darkness.

Death had always been a possibility.

_John_'s death, however, had always been an _im_possibility, at least to him. Death would and could happen to everyone but John. John was too good, too pure, too human for death. It was as if Sherlock had deluded himself into thinking that his affection for John alone was untouchable, that it cocooned itself around him and made him invincible.

_Everyone wants to hold on to the people they love. Everyone is selfish._

He really was just like everyone else. Love seemed to be the common denominator. How interesting.

Who was he kidding? He'd been proven to be nothing else countless times before this. He held his head so loftily, looked down on everyone around him, yet judging by the way he felt like he was trapped in an ice floe, cold and numb as his shocked mind allowed raw, chilly fear to pulse through him, freezing him from the inside out, he was no different from them.

But he'd been right so many times before. Shouldn't that count for anything? For some kind of credit he could use to not feel this way, to not have his world stop at the thought of not having John Watson in it?

No use wishing for the illogical.

Somehow, his brain managed to reattach itself to the rest of his body and sent him running down the halls at a furious pace, bursting outside to the assembly plant where the shot had rang out.

John's laugh. His smile. How he hissed every time he took a sip of too-hot tea, even though he did it enough for it to be habit. His frown, the crease in his brow. The feeling of his bare heart beating under Sherlock's palm. His anger, the only thing that had ever made Sherlock doubt himself.

His love.

Sherlock couldn't lose any of it. He wouldn't survive. Living without John was like taking a rich feast away from a king and leaving him to live off nothing but bread and water. It was unbearable.

It was not an option.

* * *

><p>Mikheia watched Sherlock appear as he pocketed his gun, watched him burst from the main factory and cross the empty yard like the stretched shadow of an invisible man, watched him pull open the large doors to the assembly plant and enter.<p>

He watched, waited, and then followed.

He knew exactly where the switch to turn on the machines were, knew the exact order to punch the buttons that sent the assembly line roaring to life for the first time in eighteen years. He'd made sure to learn before he arrived.

It was of vital importance.

Silently, he entered the empty plant whose silence sung of decrepit rust.

Silently, he stalked over to the main switchboard, punched the buttons, and watched as Sherlock came to stand in the middle of the empty room as the machines began to bang and churn around him in a billowing plume of noise and dust. He looked like a mad scientist among his metal prodigies.

"Did you always know how to do that," Sherlock's voice came calmly through the steam and empty whirring of the rusted machines. "Or did your employer teach you?"

"Novgorod school number 24, actually." Mikheia answered, stepping back into the shadows. "To graduate you had to assemble an AK-47 in no more than 30 seconds."

"The machines didn't turn themselves on."

"No, I did that, sir. Since I was qualitied and had no other option, I used to work at a place much like this."

"_Qualified_." Sherlock corrected. "How is your shoulder?"

"Better than before. Mostly healed now."

"You and John match now, you know."

Silence.

"Why?" Sherlock asked into the clanging void. "Why are you doing this?"

"I was charged with keeping you busy." Came the solemn voice.

"And this is your solution?"

Silence from the other end.

"Let me go, Mikheia." Sherlock said as evenly as he could manage, taking another step towards the doors. "You know what John means to me. You _know_, I know you do. Let me go and help him—"

"_No_!" Mikheia's voice echoed through the room like thunder. "He must do it alone."

Sherlock shut his eyes, the action visible to no one but himself. He reached a hand out and quietly tried the door handle. Locked, like all the others.

"They are all locked." Mikheia said, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere. "I am thorough, sir, if nothing else."

"He saved your life." Sherlock said, his voice trembling as if it were angry for John. Angry at the unfairness of it all. "He saved your life, Mikheia. You owe him."

"No, sir._ You_ saved me my life. You took me out of Novgorod, showed me what the world was like, and it was just as I imagined. They were just as I imagined—"

"I didn't want you to _join_ them because they gave you a better offer!" Sherlock said irately. He paused, the hisses and grinding of the machines nearly drowning out his next words, spoken so softly, like a prayer in church. "I trusted you."

A jet of steam whistled ahead of Sherlock, near the chipping double doors, before falling, revealing Mikheia's pale face, close in proximity, but distant and untouchable in every other sense.

"You should not have." He said softly in a voice thick with darkness. "Love, it is a liability."

He struck a match and everything caught fire.

* * *

><p>What an awful time for Sherlock to realise he was standing in a room that had been soaking in oil for two decades.<p>

Fire bloomed around him like a sunrise, hot, sudden and bright. A machine to his left that had once been tasked to sorting bullets started to sputter as sparks began emanating from it. He could only hope the idiots that had abandoned this factory had taken the ammunition with them.

Through the thick black smoke Sherlock could make out Mikheia's form, flitting through the fire like a shadow.

"_Mikheia_!" He drew his shirt to the bridge of his nose and tried to squint through the smoke that blossomed around him. There was the smashing of glass and the room began to clear as smoke gushed out into the clear night air. A suicide mission didn't seem to be either Mikheia's forte or the way he truly wanted either of them to go.

A quick glance through watering eyes proved to Sherlock what he already suspected, that Mikheia had thrown himself through a window by the quickly heating metal stairs, not quite between the first and second floors.

Sherlock followed the thinning smoke to it, banging his knees against the hot iron of the industrial stairs and sending a long cut along his arm as his sleeve snagged the corner of a machine. He stared out of the smashed window at the imprint Mikheia's body had left in the bushes beneath him as he tucked and rolled through the impact.

The fall would hurt, but it wouldn't be fatal.

Good.

Just like his last one.

* * *

><p>John had barely made it to the double doors before his legs had given out beneath him.<p>

Moran laughed from where he lay sprawled on the floor as he wiped the blood on his jaw away with his sleeve.

"Did you really think I wouldn't have a back-up plan?" He barked as he wobbled to his feet, picking up his dropped fag.

John could feel his limbs begin to spasm, but the feeling was distant, detached, as if all of his nerve endings had been shot. He felt severed from his body, although it anchored him down he felt nothing in it but the rapid beating of his heart. He had the sudden feeling that he'd felt this way before.

"Was this—" He muttered into the concrete. "Was this what you gave me in the Kremlin?"

Moran chuckled as he relit his cigarette.

"Look at you. Every time I try to get to the exposition properly, you keep spoiling it." He circled John's convulsing form before he stopped and all John could see was the polished toes of his boots. "It's a newer drug, a form of benzodiazepines. They took clonazepam, that drug they use to control seizures, and reinvented it. You like it?" He asked, smiling. "Well, actually I can't see why you would be, considering that we haven't given it to you since Novgorod. Which would explain the little episode you're experiencing now. Sorry if I don't turn your head to the side so you don't swallow your tongue." He sneered as he began to circle John again.

John felt his stomach begin to convulse and heave, yet he could do nothing but choke on every breath he took before letting it rattle out of him. Moran knelt beside him, picking up his forearm in a tight grip and examining it for a moment before sinking the needle of a syringe into it and pushing the plunger.

John bit back a groan as cool water flooded through him. It felt like blood was surging back into sleeping limbs. He felt his body bloom back to life, reconnect back to his brain, and settle into soft stillness. He let out a slow exhale before breathing back in, marvelling at the sudden calm.

"You deserve every kind of hell, John Watson." Moran breathed, standing back up and kicking at John's still twitching leg. "This is the kindest one I'm offering. Addiction. You see, clonazepam embodies everything that forms an addictive substance. It takes the pain away. Makes you…dependent. Makes you think you need it to feel normal. Makes you see problems where they aren't any."

"_I don't remember much of what happened. I know my contact in Novgorod was a snitch and I know I was drugged and taken into the Kremlin. I kind of drifted in and out after that, but I remember hearing your name and—it sounds so odd now—but I remember the taste of chewing gum and the smell of gunpowder."_

"One—" John coughed. "One dosage can't form an addiction—"

Moran grinned.

"Who said anything about Novgorod being your first dose? Don't you remember the gum they gave you? How you always got so nervous before a hit, so restless that your hands were shaking? How the gum always seemed to calm you down?" He smiled as John's eyes widened. "You can't have convinced yourself it was just a sugar rush."

_The drug was in the gum—__no__—it __was __the gum, only with a vague synthetic mint flavouring, which would make perfect sense since cordite is three-fifths nitroglycerin so it would taste sweet naturally…_

Moran looked up as the doors opened. "Wonderful, back-up has arrived." He said and John followed his gaze to the two men entering the room, one lightly tanned and blonde, the other bald and dark skinned. "Took you long enough." Moran sneered then turned back to John. "These two are Asad and Isaacs. Been working with them since before Sherlock's fall at St. Bart's. Some of the best of the best, as far as assassins go. The agency's been after them for a while you know—"

John drew his gun from his belt and fired. It caught the blonde guard in the bridge of his nose and a burst of red and pink splattered the wall behind him. Unnecessary. Unfortunate. One down.

Moran laughed, a deep scratchy rasp. The other guard moved to draw his gun.

"No, Asad, leave it." Moran ordered and Asad lowered his arm. "Isaacs was always the worst shot of the two of you. I was thinking of firing him anyways." A slow smile crept on his face. "Seems Johnny here beat me to it." He laughed as if John had made a good joke and nudged him with his foot. "Didn't know you had that gun, Watson. Remind me to frisk you next time."

"There won't be a next time." John said through gritted teeth and Moran turned around.

The two stared at each other for a moment, John's gun aimed at Moran and Moran's hands in his pockets.

"Well, Doctor Watson, what are you to do now? Kill me, hurt me if you must, but won't be getting revenge. Not really."

"There are other ways to hurt you." John said coldly.

"I concur." Moran said, blood trickling into his smile as he pulled out his gun and fired a bullet into John Watson.

* * *

><p>Sherlock burst into the factory warehouse just as the shot rang out. How many more would he have to hear thinking that John was at the other end? What if—<p>

_No._

He had come out onto a mezzanine overlooking the factory floor, built for the labour supervisors to watch their workers. A hawk's nest that offered a view of the entire building.

That same view included John's body, sprawled on the ground, blood spotting his right shoulder as Moran moved to stand over him, raising his gun.

_No, wrong, no, no, no, NO—_

"_Moran_!" Sherlock shouted, his voice booming around the bare skeleton of the building.

Moran's head snapped up and even from a distance Sherlock could see his smile widen.

"Look who's come to join us, Watson!" He said gleefully as he headed towards the stairs. "You stay right there, love." He chuckled to John as Sherlock rushed down. "Your own little Prince Charming, here to save you—"

Moran rounded the corner to the stairs just as Sherlock reached the bottom and rushed forward, grabbing the closest thing he could find and slamming a shattered beam of wood into his face, sending Moran to the ground in a blur of splintered wood and gushing blood.

"John?" Sherlock tossed the beam aside and it clattered beside Moran's sprawled form. He heard a rustle of movement, footsteps, and he quickly ducked the pistol whip aimed for his head. "Really?" He scoffed at the guard as he blocked the thick punch aimed for his solar plexus. "Have we been resorted to caveman-like tactics?" Sherlock leaned back to avoid the oncoming swipe to his temple and twisted his weight, sending all of his momentum into a harsh blow to the man's jaw, leaving him to collapse, out cold on the concrete. "Apologies for the indecorum." Sherlock sniffed, straightening his jacket back into place.

A gasp, a rattle of drawn breath, broke the quiet.

"John?"

The floor looked more complicated when it sprang up around him, a maze of half-stocked shelves and broken machinery."_John_?"

"Sh—m'here." A voice rasped, followed by a sudden weak banging.

John groaned in relief as Sherlock came into view and let his foot fall from where he'd been kicking the underbelly of the assembly machine beside him.

His blood shone in the dim light.

Sherlock's blue eyes turned a dark red as they reflected the blood blooming under John's body. The rich red, that dark carmine like wine, staining the oil slick, greasy concrete beneath him. There wasn't much, but the bullet could still have struck a vital artery, still could have lodged itself in John's lung or his heart—oh god, his _heart_—

"John, hold on—"

"Sherl…k"

"Yes it's me you great idiot." A gentle hand brushed at his temple.

"I—is Moran—"

"I don't know." Sherlock said as he unzipped John's jacket to get to the wound. "I didn't stick around to find out. Much more pressing issues."

"Hope he is. Bastard." John coughed.

Sherlock grinned at John's petulant tone as he tossed away the jacket.

"I do too, John."

He looked backed to him and his smile fell, a pale hand shooting out to grip John's face tightly.

"John? John, I swear, if you do something so predictably tedious as die on me tonight, I will find a way to drag you back from the hereafter so I can kill you again—"

"Look…f'ward to it."

"_John_—" He didn't like how his voice sounded, so full of shaking instability, so…insecure. Not for the first time, he wished not to be burdened with an intelligence that knew the outcome of the situation. "No—John, I—you can't leave me. You swore, John. You promised—"

A hand sticky with blood found his.

"N—Sherlock. Never. I—" John let out a breathy laugh that Sherlock found entirely too irrelevant to the situation. "Too. You. Love you. Too."

Movement behind him. Sherlock turned his head. Moran was struggling to get up, wet blood matting his hair.

Ignoring John's rising protest, Sherlock stood from between the rusting machines, something steeped in darkness somewhere inside him swelling with rage. His hands fisted at his sides.

"Why the long face, Holmes?" Moran barked. "Your bonnie lass' lights going out then? Wish you'd gotten here later, when the party would really be starting. There'd—there'd be much more blood, I can guarantee that—" He didn't have the chance to finish before Sherlock was upon him in a vicious blur of movement.

He straddled Moran as he struggled, sending carefully calculated strikes into places he knew would hurt most. Sternum. Solar plexus. Hollow of the throat. He sent all of his force into the punches then pulled back at the point of contact so the blows were sharp, so they were concise, concentrated. Maim, yes, but don't kill. Make him feel like John does. Make him _hurt_. He couldn't hear John's sounds of protest or Moran's mad laughter. He only heard the thunder of gunfire, only heard the screech of that blast that sent that small piece of metal into John's shoulder at a high velocity, something that only should have happened the one time, once, before Sherlock had known him, before he had loved him enough to want to save him and damn the fates that made it happen again.

After he landed a particularly sharp hit below Moran's ribcage, he realised he was crying stinging, dehydrated tears. The kind of tears borne from a harsh wind whipping at them, borne from keeping his eyes open too long so he could see the blood blooming from under his hands.

"_Stop_!" John's voice rang out through the garage, bouncing off the cold floor from where he lay. Sherlock took a steadying breath as he lowered his fist, curled into an anticipated blow, and glanced down. Moran wouldn't be getting up any time soon. Couldn't hurt John. John. John needs him.

He knelt beside him as John tried to grasp the straps of something Sherlock should have noticed before.

He should have known John would have been prepared, would not have walked into a situation that might be fatal and not have a back-up plan. Where Sherlock was instant, John was patient. Where Sherlock was logical, John was practical.

"Help me get this off, would you?" John groaned, nudging at his bullet-proof vest. "It's stifling underneath."

Sherlock helped him haul the ruined vest off and as soon as he flung it away he knelt closer to John's shoulder, examining the thick abrasion on the curve of his clavicle.

"Could've been worse." John muttered. "God, that knocked the wind right out of me. I forgot what that felt like…"

Sweat matted at his hairline, colouring his hair darker, and a bit of his blood had splattered across his jaw. Sherlock wiped it away with his thumb as he helped John sit up.

_How dare he make you remember, how dare he fire that gun at you, make me think you were dying, make me think that a man like that could take a man like you away from me..._

"Where's—oh Christ." John's voice trailed off and Sherlock glanced up to where he was looking, his face crestfallen.

Moran was gone.

* * *

><p>Sherlock followed John through the silent shelves of the factory, the still-blazing plant casting their shadows in a dark orange glow against the concrete.<p>

"Do you think he got to Mikheia?" John asked quietly and Sherlock considered his answer.

"No." He said, his eyes scanning the room. "Mikheia is smart. If he's as smart as I suspect, he should be a mile away by now."

"And if he's not?"

"Then he's still here."

"Are you alright?" John asked softly.

"Me? Yes, of course, I wasn't the one that was shot at."

"No, I mean—Sherlock, when I came back to the room, there was blood all over your face—"

"Ah, that. Yes, Moran did get a bit punchy. Happy to see me, I suspect."

"I should have shot him when I had the chance." John muttered.

"Well there's much to be said about second chances—" Sherlock said before he sent a kick into the nearest shelf, toppling it over with a resounding bang. There was a sudden noise, heavier, as someone tried to scurry out of the way. "Namely that they always appear sooner or later."

"Stay behind me." John said, drawing his gun from his waistband and pushing in front of Sherlock as the figure attempted to crawl out from between the tight space between the collapsed shelf and the wall. A great plume of dust rose with the shadow as it stood and soon settled to the floor.

"Mikheia…" John muttered. Two great green eyes stared at him, blood trickling down the side of his face from an open cut. His hands were bandaged with torn, bloodied pieces of cloth in the way of street punks that had habits of breaking windows.

His eyes flickering between the two, Mikheia opened his mouth as if to say something before he closed it and turned on his heel, vaulting over a fallen machine and disappearing from sight as he ran.

"Mikheia, wait!" John tucked his gun back into his belt and jumped over the machine as well as he ran after him, Sherlock following close behind.

John called his name once more as Mikheia leapt over the still unconscious guard and made his way to the stairwell, yet the boy didn't stop.

Sherlock's heart bloomed.

The chase was on.

* * *

><p>Mikheia had mentioned to Sherlock once that he was a fan of parkour.<p>

Sherlock had taken that to mean that he liked _watching_ it, not practising, although apparently he did it quite often.

Of course his mind chose to bring this fact up as he watched Mikheia leap onto the top of a rusted piece of machinery with nothing more than a running start and some admirable arm strength.

Some part of him, however small, was quite jealous at the dexterity it was being shown.

Another part of him quietly remembered that Mikheia had a shoulder injury that would not allow him to continue completing such a trick. There was only so far he could go.

As soon as Mikheia's feet hit the roof of the machine he was bounding up again, crossing the gap to bang against the railing of a catwalk hanging above the floor. Sherlock heard his groan of pain as he dragged himself up and over as John called his name again and Sherlock bit back the desire to remind John that, since Mikheia had not responded to his name earlier, repeating it over and over again wasn't going to help.

But then John called him and there was something in his voice that made Mikheia stop, made him freeze in his tracks on that skimpy little excuse for a catwalk. Sherlock could see him shaking.

Mikheia looked down to them for a moment.

A large industrial light above them turned on, a brilliant blaze of light blinding them for a moment.

Then it shut off.

As his eyes readjusted to the darkness, Sherlock could hear feet pounding on the thin metal. He heard John call out as he rushed up the stairs trying to head Mikheia off.

He tried to follow, but stumbled into a conveyor belt with a crash. Disorientation was not his favourite state of being.

His vision cleared right as John reached the top of the stairs and Mikheia leapt off the catwalk onto an old shelf full of tin and spare parts near the doorway that Sherlock had burst through earlier, as Moran stood over John's bloodied form and he had thought the worst. As Mikheia jumped from the shelf to the door, he sent a kick to the back of the shelf as it gathered momentum, causing it to fall towards John in an attempt to blockade the door, yet John managed to slip through at the last second, pursuing Mikheia down the corridor, leaving a great mess behind for Sherlock to clean up if he wished to follow.

Time consuming and incredibly tedious, yet necessary. Loathsome work. Something he usually would leave John to do.

He'd better get to work then.

* * *

><p>The assembly plant caved in on itself in a massive implosion of flame and sparks, casting John's form into shadow as it blazed through the window as he bolted past. He managed to round the corner just as something hard, cold, and heavy slammed into him, catching him on the injured shoulder.<p>

_Idiot! Always check unknown territory before you follow._

He collapsed to the floor, the feeling not so dissimilar from behind shot, although far less intense. He felt the metal's impact reverberate deep through his bones as he tried to suck in the breath it had punched out.

He groaned, clutching at his shoulder and generally feeling sorry for his current predicament, as Mikheia dropped the pipe he was holding and it banged against the floor.

"I am sorry, I tried not to hit too hard." Mikheia said, dropping to his knees beside John, holding each of his shoulders under his palms.

"Too late." John groaned, feeling the damp warmth from the boy's hands pass onto his skin. Shadows began to stretch around him. Mikheia's silhouette began to expand as he opened his mouth to talk.

"I needed to talk to you, sir. Alone."

* * *

><p>Sherlock had managed to clear the shelf in record time through a decisive combination of kicking at the debris and swearing loudly before squeezing himself through the gap as soon as he could.<p>

He banged open the doors and rounded the corner to an empty corridor, as he had suspected it would be. He hurried to the end of it, where four halls intersected, and passed through the silence before a dark movement caught his eye.

"John!"

He doubled back to the crossed hallways and bolted down the one where John had appeared at the end. Sherlock rushed up to him just as John strode towards the detective, meeting him halfway and grabbing him, turning him around as he searched for any visible wounds.

"Are you alright? Did he hurt you?"

"What? No." John shook his head, his breathing heavy from exertion. "No, I lost him in the hallways. He must have ducked into an empty room or something, waited for me to pass before coming back out."

Sherlock stared at him for a moment before straightening up.

"Did you see him?" John asked, wiping sweat from his brow. "Did he come this way?"

"No, obviously." Sherlock said with a roll of his eyes. "Otherwise I would be in pursuit."

"Moran has his family, doesn't he? Or he's convinced Mikheia that he has."

"Most likely the latter." Sherlock sniffed. "Mycroft sent someone en route to Novgorod to watch them, although I am apprehensive as to whether they were successful."

"Ghost hostages. Brilliant idea on Moran's part, since he figures we don't know if we're even sacrificing ourselves for anyone's safety, which we don't. Fantastic. Right." John sighed before flinching as his hand gingerly touched around his right shoulder. "I suppose I should be grateful that the bullet didn't catch me anywhere vital, but _Christ_ this stings. Probably not helped by…chasing after Mikheia like that."

"What did he inject you with?"

"Who? Moran?"

"It was to my understanding that you haven't been injected with anything recently, at least not to my knowledge, with the exception of tonight."

"Well if that's the attitude you're going to take—"

"No, John, that's not—" Sherlock exhaled heavily, bringing a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Please, just…tell me."

"Do you remember how the agency gave me drugged gum?"

"Yes."

"Well, turns out what was in it wasn't just cordite, it was clonazepam, a drug used to—"

"Control seizures, or at least give the illusion of control, which is simultaneously the most idiotic and brilliant notion because humans crave control the most, so naturally through association there would be an attachment to the drug, which makes it highly addictive…" Sherlock finished then trailed off as his eyes grew wide.

"And do you remember Prague? When we were in the men's room?"

_"And do you know how it felt when I thought I finally had control of my life and then you come back and royally fuck it all up?"_

_Sherlock couldn't stop the destruction of the final mirror._

_"I thought I was the one in charge of my life, Sherlock! Not you, not Mary, not bloody sodding MYCROFT ! Christ, I mean, have I truly done anything on my own without anybody meddling?" He headed to send another fist into the already smashed glass. With the sharp edges and the velocity the tissue damage would be so hard to repair—_

_"John, John—stop!"_

"Yes." Sherlock answered solemnly.

"I was shaking then, not enough for me to notice, but I was. I had a panic attack. Thought you were leaving me or that you were working with Mary of all people or…well, I don't know what I thought. It was so sudden—took me off-guard—and I didn't even start to consider _why_ it happened in the first place. But…I'd stopped chewing the gum then, hadn't I? I'd stopped the medication for something I didn't really need but my body thought I did."

"Dependency is a remarkably despondent state of being."

"Funny thing, that." John chuckled hollowly, running his hands through his hair. "I never wanted to be dependent on anything. Except maybe you on your good days." His gaze turned to look out of the window at the plant, consumed by fire. "This is all my fault, isn't it?" He asked in a quiet, broken voice that Sherlock never wanted to hear from him again.

Sherlock stared at him for a moment before he reached his hand out and ghosted his fingers over the scarring _IOU_ by John's ear. John flinched slightly then leaned into his touch.

"You once told me that you knew who did this to you." Sherlock said quietly. "Tell me he is the man that tortured you. Tell me he is the man that shot Mikheia, turned him against us, and is now making us save his family because he knows that you're a good man, better than me, since you aren't inclined to abandon them like I might've been. Tell me his name, and I swear to you that I will _destroy_ him and everything that he is or hopes to be. After you have your turn, though."

"You're a good man too, you know." John said solemnly. "A great one. The best, actually."

"John."

John looked at him, an infinitesimal regret seeping into his gaze. He opened his mouth then shut it, looking at anything else but Sherlock.

"Moran."

Sherlock leaned in and kissed him then, as if it were a reward for a correct answer. John thought it tasted salty, like sweat. Like smoke and tears. A mouthful of ashes of the remains of something beautiful.

"Good. Well done. It seems he is the culprit here, not you." Sherlock stepped away and moved almost as if he was going to start pacing and then reconsidered it, turning on his heel back towards John. "Moran has done all of those things because I wasn't smart enough to stop him. Because I failed you. I will not allow him to continue."

"What if they take you again? I won't be here to—to stop them." _To protect you._

"My hand-to-hand combat skills are more than proficient enough to handle them, judging by the incompetence we've encountered lately. Moran merely got lucky in the hotel. It's hard to fight back when you're in a post-orgasmic haze and have a sedative fired into your chest." Sherlock sniffed before his expression turned cool, controlled. "They almost took you from me." He said calmly. "I know you have no plans to get revenge yourself for your bodily harm, however, my interests remain incongruous." He stepped closer to John. "I will make them _hurt_ for what they did to you, John. I want them to feel how I felt, seeing you covered in your own blood and knowing I might not be able to save you."

John stared at him silently. He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"It has to be me, Sherlock." He whispered. "I have to face him, in the end."

Sherlock scoffed and gave him a look as if Anderson had just suggested they go out to lunch.

"Ridiculous. I will not allow it."

"He's my Moriarty, Sherlock. You know he is."

"I will_ not_ make that same mistake twice, John, and I will certainly not sit back and let you die by his hands, staged or not."

"Sherlock, look at me." John said softly. When Sherlock didn't move, he added more forcefully "Sherlock, _turn around_."

Sherlock did as he requested and as his blue gaze turned to him John was reminded of a child he had seen in Afghanistan who had watched his home burn in front of his eyes.

"Sherlock…"

Sherlock said nothing, taking a shallow, shaking inhale as he pulled John to him, resting his forehead on John's.

"You said you wouldn't leave." He said in a breath of words that billowed into John's face like smoke.

The tone of Sherlock's voice almost made him wish he could stay. He sounded like cracked glass about to shatter, like someone whose feet were losing their balance on the ledge of a roof impossibly high up, someone who knew they had no safety net below them anymore, only pavement and velocity.

John tilted his head up softly and let his mouth graze over Sherlock's. It could hardly be called a kiss, but it was so much more than a show of mere affection.

It simply _was_.

"Dying doesn't mean that I'll leave you." John said quietly. "You should know that well enough. You never left me."

"Oh, bollocks." Sherlock muttered in contradiction. "Yes I did. I faked my death, I deceived you, I ran around the world, and you weren't at my side. I left you in the fullest sense of the word."

"No you didn't. Not really."

How could John just _disarm_ him like that? With five words he proved himself the better man. Again. As if Sherlock needed more proof.

"There will never be another you. Not for me, at least."

"Well, there's only one consulting detective in the world, so it's not like I have my pick of the field." John smiled and let it fade.

"Don't go where I can't find you." He muttered lowly in John's ear. John nodded, laying his forehead back down on Sherlock's.

They stood there for a moment, forehead to forehead in a quiet hallway, savouring their moment of peace as a building burned to ash behind them, setting their shadows alight.

John pulled away first.

* * *

><p>Sherlock thought, in the burst of clarity he typically associated with epiphanies, that he was an idiot. An absolute <em>idiot<em>.

How supremely imprudent of him to assume that John had been the only one to have been injected with anything. How stupid, when he had nearly an hour of blank memory to account for, an hour between his kidnapping and John's arrival.

He looked down at his steady hands. No trembling. He and John were not part of the same experiment.

His shadow stretched in front of him as if it had just woken up. As if it had been strapped to a rack and stretched.

"_I saw the Golem's shadow."_

Sherlock could only stare at it. Stare as John continued running ahead, past the burning assembly plant, to the multilevel car park in the distance, the only place they agreed that Moran could have run to.

_Move. MOVE. MOVE YOUR SODDING LEGS SHERLOCK HOLMES._

But he couldn't.

An aftershock detonated inside his head, feeling as if it were blasting away all the accumulated dirt and muck that had been gathering for years; the grime of his association with London's underbelly, with the seedy bars and clubs and alleys of the world as he burned Moriarty's remains. It made his mind feel clean again, peaceful and calm. Something not unlike the rush of cocaine. Something not dissimilar to the feeling of John pushing and pulling inside of him. He choked on a breath, clutching at his chest.

John. Where had John gone? Had he realised yet that Sherlock was not at his side? Surely he had. Wasn't that something that was immediately obvious?

But…in all their escapades, had he ever waited for John if he had fallen behind? Truth be told, he hadn't even noticed when John wasn't there until he arrived at his destination. His mind had honed in on one goal—_get there_—and everything blurred away into obscurity until it jutted back into sharp focus when it mattered to him again.

He felt a sharp, hollow pain in his chest as he realised that John would not notice his absence until he was facing Moran alone, if Moran was indeed where they suspected.

The sound of safety clicking off cut into the silence.

"Don't move, Mr Holmes."

Sherlock shut his eyes in frustration. He could _not_ deal with this right now.

"Hello again, Mary."

"I'm afraid that I can't let you leave."

"You know, you're the second person to tell me that today and the first couldn't keep their promise."

"I will not."

Sherlock made a noise of irritation and turned around, hoping he looked foreboding and not obviously suffering from whatever drug had been injected into him.

He looked at the gun she was holding. They both were aware that, with her line of work, she most certainly knew how to use it.

"I am not going to let you keep me from him." He ground out lowly.

Mary smiled. It reached her eyes. How odd.

"That's the thing, Sherlock. I don't think you have a choice."

* * *

><p>The multilevel car park smelled of oil and dirt, as many tended to do. It smelled dark and damp, metallic, of thick rust and new blood. John could hear the Miljacka River thunder furiously behind it like adrenalin enhanced blood through a vein. He peered over the edge of the concrete lip. The river was dangerously close, as if the rising floodwaters would sweep the car park away soon. He hoped it had been built on good foundation.<p>

A noise clattered above him, on the next level, and he drew his gun as he headed up the ramp to the next level, passing by a decrepit elevator shaft that cocooned a rusting lift in its shadow.

Moran was waiting for him amid the decaying husks of cars that dotted the car park. He was alone. Hands in his pockets again, blood smeared on his face.

"You look lovely." John deadpanned.

Moran smirked.

"As do you. I have a question, Johnny."

"Shoot."

"Ah, let's not spoil the surprise. That's coming later."

"Your question?"

"Men like us. Soldiers. What happens to us, in the end?"

"We die." John shrugged. "But see, the thing is, that's nothing special. Everyone dies."

"Usually I find that our kind goes first." Moran said casually. "Those who like the thrill of fire always end up being consumed by it."

"To be honest, I thought a quiet death would be quite boring."

Moran eyed him. "Yeah, I bet some days you wish you'd bled out in the desert. Can't blame you since I do the same."

"Then go back."

A bark of a laugh escaped Moran's rough throat. "They'd never let me go back. I burned a lot of bridges when I left."

"Then turn around and leave."

Moran did not laugh this time.

"I can't leave for the same reason that you're here. The geniuses had their run already and now it's our turn, I suppose, although not many people ever tune in for the sidekicks."

"It doesn't have to end this way."

"Yes, I'm afraid it does. I have sacrificed too much, I have worked too hard, to let you walk away from this." Moran said lowly. "Why do you think I convinced the agency to take a look at you? To send all those people into your clinic and see what you'd do? To have that mugger ambush you in the alley?"

_The third time, it had been an accident and on purpose and enjoyable, all at once. He never told anyone, he wouldn't ever tell anyone what had truly happened. All they needed to know was that there was a body and John Watson had put it there._

_He remembered his phone ringing and he had scrambled a bloodied hand into his pocket to answer the unknown number._

"You didn't—you can't have—"

"I was trained by the best, John. And I did it for him. Even though alive or not he'd never appreciate it, I did it for him. He is my genius, my dark angel, and I am his soldier. After all," Moran grinned. "Isn't everyone always harping about how closure does you good?"

"And you think that my death will give you that? What about Sherlock? He'll come after you with everything he's got."

Moran laughed. "You think that hasn't occurred to me? I know I'm not as bright as the rest, but give me some credit, Watson. Jim left me a list of people; good people that I can rely on."

"What if Sherlock's taken care of them?"

"He hasn't."

"And why me? Why here and now?"

"Jim wanted Sherlock to watch his heart burn to ash. I always gave Jim what he wanted."

"But he's dead."

Moran smiled and cocked his head slightly. "No, he's not."

John felt his heart lurch. Impossible.

"Yes he is…I saw the bloodstains, Sherlock told me what he did, I—no one survives that."

A dark gleam appeared in Moran's eyes, like the shine of blood. "There are many forms of survival, John Watson." He said as he drew his gun from his pocket and trained it on John. "You didn't put your vest back on, did you?"

"No." John answered. He had aimed lower on Moran's body, in the non-lethal areas. Moran had not granted him the same mercy.

"Good. I don't want any cheating in this round. A fair fight to the end."

"If you want to call it that."

"Any last words?"

John shut his eyes and when he opened them, everything seemed clearer, every detail sharper and more defined. The moonlight was bright against the smoke of the still-smouldering remains of the assembly plant. When he spoke next, his words rung out through the emptiness.

"10. 5. 8. 14."

"You and Holmes got some sort of code now?"

John nearly smiled.

"Not exactly."

* * *

><p>Sherlock let out a heavy exhale, damp in the night air.<p>

"It was not my intention for you to receive the awful headache that you will get upon consciousness." He said down to Mary's decidedly unconscious form. "Or perhaps not. Morality has always been sort of a grey area for me." He sniffed, about to head towards the car park before he turned on his heel back towards her, kneeling down and fishing around in her pocket for her mobile, yet he came up with nothing. Knowing her, she would have had one on her person at all times, yet a quick frisk told him that there was no such device anywhere on her.

Never mind that, it's insignificant now. Get to John.

As he ran towards the car park, the sound of car alarms blared through the night. Plural. All had set off inside the car park simultaneously. Curious.

There was a bang. Gun shot. Not curious. Worrisome.

_John._

He was almost there, sprinting across the grass, his face slick with grime from the fire. The air smelled of ash and smoke. His chest hurt.

"_JOHN_!"

His voice was drowned in the subsequent blast as the garage exploded.

_Don't go where I can't find you._

* * *

><p><strong>Man, that was long!<strong>

**Thank you_ so_ incredibly much to everyone who has stuck with this the whole way through! I googled this for the hell of it and found out that there are some silent watchers in the wings, so I'd like to thank you as well, even if you've never reviewed, because you matter just as much and you're giving this story an audience, which is all I wanted. I will post the epilogue shortly and, if everything goes right, the sequel should be up soon!**


	37. the faith

"There are worse things than  
>being alone<br>but it often takes decades  
>to realize this<br>and most often  
>when you do<br>it's too late  
>and there's nothing worse<br>than  
>too late."<p>

"Oh Yes" – Charles Bukowski

* * *

><p>The room was utterly silent, a vacuity, void of noise, movement, sound, save for one man's shaking breaths and the background sounds of the street.<p>

The silence wasn't screaming at Sherlock like it had before, when it was all white noise and static screeching and pounding in his head, pulsing and prodding like a black current underneath the frozen _no no no not him not him not him anyone else anyone else take me do anything you'd like to me but not him please_. It was softer now, a high-pitched wind that whistled through holes scraped into shredded metal.

He didn't remember how he'd gotten back to the hotel. He didn't remember anything other than the feeling of heat on his face and the sudden realisation that he had nothing to live for any longer. Maybe he didn't want to remember.

The aftermaths of the cocktail of Moran's drug and whatever Mycroft had given him to sedate him made him feel disconnected, adrift amid nothing and everything, but unfeeling, unattached. In some way, he felt grateful. It had temporarily achieved the heroin promise; the reassurance of the shadowy bliss, that blessed state of not caring about anything. It had made him not feel John's absence at all. He could convince himself he'd gone out to buy milk, that he'd be back soon, surely—

Yet some rational part of him knew otherwise.

This was worse, so much worse than Ante-John, before 221B was_ theirs_ and it was just _his_, just Sherlock's, when he often wondered if he would always be a solitary creature, it was worse than that lonely cigarette after The Woman faked her death, and far worse than Sine-John because he had hoped that one day to return.

John would not be coming back. Death was, if anything else, confident in its abilities to ensure its own permanency. As surely as the sun would rise every day, so would John Watson lie still, never to rise again. The thought made him feel like he was drifting over something dark and empty.

This was Post-John, singularly more worse and terrible than anything else he had been through, something he had never hoped he'd live to experience, something he'd sacrificed three years of _his_ presence for, and it ended in the one event that he knew would break him entirely.

This was an existence that he couldn't abide by. Not after he'd tasted the divinity of being with _him_, kissing him, holding him, opening himself for him. Not after he'd chosen to hand over his heart and all his darkness plugged into it like wires only to have his army doctor disappear with it into places that Sherlock couldn't travel to and get it back from, leaving his chest hollow as the warm pulse faded from him and his blood turned to stagnant standing-water (a physical improbability but nonetheless accurate).

He couldn't bring himself to eat or think or sleep. He couldn't even think of...of him anymore. Not by name. He couldn't. He just drifted through space, ignorant of the stars and light and beauty, just seeing blackness, slowly moving along into the infinite parameters.

He shut his eyes.

* * *

><p>After the car park had been swallowed by flame, he heard them. The sirens. Apparently it was international custom for emergency help to arrive too late when you really needed it. As the trucks wailed and people rushed around him to put out the twin fires, he sat where he had collapsed in the damp dirt.<p>

He couldn't move. He just stared at the fire.

Stared with an abstract fascination that such a simple thing, something no one ever thought of when it was small, could grow and gain the power to take away everything and leave nothing behind. The was life, wasn't it? Pillars of fire. You never thought about it when you could contain it, when it was a shadow inside you, and then one day you turn around and it's a mountain behind you that swallows you before you can realise just how big it's gotten.

The drumming was back in his head like it never left. That drumming that drove him to heroin so he could tune it out. That drumming that ceased as he turned his head and in that silent echo glanced at the small soldier in that hideous jumper, staring at him from between cop cars with a bent cabbie's blood on his hands.

The drumming that pounded louder than it ever had as smoke poured into the sky. That offbeat rhythm of hundreds of drums, all out of tune with one another, creating that cacophony that made it impossible to think. Sirens. Shouting. Fire gulping down the air. Smoke billowing into the night. Feet pounding in the mud. Metal keening as it collapsed. The sound of air brushing against the sheets. Car alarms screaming as their bodies burned alive. The small huff of laughter John had made after he'd licked a spot on Sherlock's neck and he'd flinched. The heartbeat under Sherlock's palm, steady and constant. The shouting, the running, as the garage collapsed into itself. The sound of John murmuring his name.

_Alone. All alone. He'd had Heaven underneath his hands, and now it was gone. Turned to smoke. No more John._

_ John. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. You failed him. You let him die. And you don't even have a body to bury. How karmic._

It was that thought more than the others that made him realise how wet his face had become. How badly his chest hurt. How achingly hollow the small sounds coming from his throat were.

At some point that night, Mycroft had stood beside him. He hadn't said a word. He knew Sherlock wouldn't hear him. After the last of the fire had been smothered, after the ash stopped smouldering, he made the mistake of attempting to get Sherlock to leave.

"Sherlock," He said softly, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder. "We have to go now."

Sherlock's head twitched as if he was shooing away a fly.

"Sherlock."

His gaze stayed on the smoking debris in front of him.

He'd been naïve, assuming that anything that might belong to John had survived. Nothing could have survived that inferno, that fireball that guzzled the atmosphere into ruination in its maw until it'd had its fill and imploded like a dying star.

Naïve, to think that he might fall to his knees in the rubble and find John if he dug deep enough.

His hands were bloody by the time Mycroft managed to drag him out. Whatever Moran had injected into him made his thoughts blurry, unfocused, drowned in the sound of the drumming. Made him think the stars looked nice instead of the fact that John Watson was nothing more than dust. It'd be nice to think that his atoms were now free to float up into space, nice to think that the stars he was staring up at as Mycroft and another person carried him to a waiting car now contained the last particles of John Hamish Watson.

Nice, but illogical.

The stars were bright tonight.

* * *

><p>Mycroft said nothing about the tear tracks cutting through the smoke and grime on Sherlock's face, just as he didn't mention the blood on his hands or the blankness of his stare. If life with Sherlock had taught him anything, it was that the most human elements of his brother were best kept unmentioned.<p>

Mycroft dreaded the moment with every fibre of his being when Sherlock's gaze cleared and he asked where John was. It was going to be cataclysmic, a meltdown of unparalleled fury.

Sarajevo would crush under the weight Sherlock's grief.

Mycroft, contrary to the popular opinion that he was emotionally dead, was not entirely unfeeling. Though the sadness that weighed on him was mostly borne of sympathy towards Sherlock's loss, he himself had enjoyed the army doctor's existence, his positive influence in Sherlock's life, not to mention the fact that he had never seen Sherlock so peaceful when John was around since they were children. John had been a good man, and he was sorry to see the world void of his presence. John had been the sole inherently good thing in Sherlock's life, and Mycroft had appreciated him on his own merits, his nobleness, his kindness, his loyalty, and not necessarily by necessity.

He looked down at his brother.

He had seen Sherlock blacked out and faded from drug use, seen him feral and deadly from withdrawal, seen him irate and impatient from lack of food or sleep, but Sherlock heartbroken, Sherlock without John, that was something entirely different. He would not stand-by and watch his brother destroy himself over anything, even someone as worthy as John Watson.

He pulled out his phone, one hand still on Sherlock's shoulder.

Sherlock would be under full surveillance for no less than 48 hours following tonight. Sherlock was in no serious physical injury to warrant a hospital visit, but Mycroft knew it was the unseen wounds he needed to worry about. Although he was hesitant to call it a suicide watch—since it was easy enough for Sherlock to break his sober streak if it meant a distraction—that did not eliminate the more than probable risk of an intentional overdose on his part.

48 hours. Starting now.

"Sherlock."

* * *

><p>A bath. He needed a bath. Something to get this dried sweat and smoke and dirt off of him. He needed to be clean.<p>

Warily, Sherlock eyed Mycroft, who was currently typing away at his phone.

"If you wish to take a bath, Sherlock, then by all means do so, but if I do not hear from you within ten minutes of the tap being turned off then I will break the door down." Mycroft looked up at him solemnly. "Is that understood?"

Sherlock nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"Oh, and Sherlock?"

He turned.

"I'm afraid I'm going to need your clothes." Mycroft said with something akin but not as sincere as a regretful smile.

Sherlock stared at him for a moment.

"I'm being quite serious." Mycroft reiterated. "And no need to feel ashamed since after all we were raised together. Nothing I haven't seen before."

Wordlessly, he began shedding his clothes in the middle of the room. Some part of him vaguely recognised that he had done this in front of John not 24 hours ago. Another part quietly noted that he'd never do it again.

He left the clothes where they fell in a dirty heap of soot and dirt and stalked to the bathroom. He shut the door, turning the tap on to the highest temperature, noting in his movements the streaks of red and black smudged on his skin.

He looked in the mirror as it fogged up, consuming his face. His hair was matted in thick patches by dirt, his cheeks coated with a thin gritty residue that was streaked through from dried tears. His eyes were red from smoke. Or so he told himself.

He turned the tap off. Heat steamed through the pristinely clean room. The cleanliness of it all made his head hurt.

He stepped into the bath.

It burned. The water boiled underneath him as he laid down, his skin bubbling and pink and raw as it burned away like flame eating at paper. His bones blackened as the heat licked away at him, his muscle and tendons and lean fat melting away. His mind screamed at him, his nerves prickling in self-preservation, screaming at him _wrong wrong wrong too hot_ but he ignored it, ignored everything as he slid under the water.

It was so quiet. He could hear his heart beating. He remembered reading about anechoic chambers, in that other lifetime that included _him_. His vague interest in the fact that they'd drive anyone in it mad in an hour because their ears turned introspective when there wasn't any sound.

In his little chamber, he could feel his lungs burning, the bronchi within shrivelling from oxygen deprivation. He could hear his heart pounding and he wondered just how long he'd have to stay under for it to stop completely. Insanity in the chamber had been induced by the reminder of just how human they really were. Sherlock had found it fascinating. Now, as his stomach riled around seemingly in suspended momentum, he found it quite the opposite, and he burst to the surface just as he heard pounding on the door.

"Sherlock?" Mycroft's voice came from outside.

"I'm still alive, Mycroft." He bit out between breaths of air. Like he would waste his life away on something so painfully inadequate as drowning in a hotel bathtub. If he was bent on drowning—though he hadn't decided if that was the way to go yet—it would be out somewhere bigger, out where the stars would be the last thing he could see, where he could gaze up and hope that John would greet him on the other side, provided there was one. Was there an ocean near Sarajevo? How quickly could he get there?

Living without _him_, that was not an option.

Hot water dripped down his hair, trickling over his face.

He laid his head against the back of the tub and let himself burn.

* * *

><p>After Mycroft had attempted to see him to bed like the overbearing mother hen that he was, Sherlock wondered if he'd ever feel normal again. Perhaps, after the drugs wore off, he might feel better. Perhaps then the drumming would stop. But he'd never feel normal again, not with that hole in his heart.<p>

Mycroft soon appeared to realise that Sherlock, as exhausted as he was, was thinking far too much to slip into anything resembling an R.E.M. state and a man soon appeared, handing a syringe to his boss, who touched his hand to Sherlock's neck, feeling for his jugular. As he pressed the plunger, Sherlock's half-coherent attempt at a snide remark on drug dependence faded away.

He dreamed of his soldier, there in the fire. Saw his silhouetted form stand in the flames as smoke billowed around him, saw him standing there as he burned away to ash that scattered into the air. He reached out a hand, he called for Sherlock as if he was welcoming him home, and just as Sherlock reached him, he collapsed in a pile of ash. There'd been no body. No empirical proof that he'd ever existed—

When Sherlock woke, the space beside him was empty. He stared at it as the wind billowed into the room, ruffling the empty sheets where a body should be. He felt that same panic as the day when he had woken up alone instead of in _his_ arms, a panic that hadn't subsided until his soldier had entered the room. Sherlock was in the middle of reaching his phone when he remembered that his army doctor was not there anymore, that he'd always be staring at a door that he was never to come through again.

It was as if he'd never even been there to begin with. As if he had truly been the Golem, created by some malevolent force and sent to Sherlock to love him, to make him believe that he might be loved by someone, before he burned away and turned to smoke, Sherlock's heart in his hand. From ash he was born, and so to which he would return.

It was stupid. Stupid. Yet, after the garage had fallen into cooling ash, he had sited through the remains, looking for any sign, for any echoes in his hollow chest that might lead him to find his heart in the debris.

But no. No. The way he had felt under Sherlock's hands, warm and soft, the way the sheets still smelled of sex and sweat and _him_, the way he had loved Sherlock, that couldn't—it had been too unspoiled, too real. He had been no counterfeit. Sherlock wished he could bottle it, that smell, to put it on swabs and capture that essence before it too faded away.

He barely remembered the first dream when he slipped into another. The day passed by in a drugged, exhausted haze of sleeping and waking, with Mycroft only bothering him with water or another dose of whatever it was that made him forget just what he'd lost. Sherlock welcomed it. He would raise his head blearily to the empty space on the bed beside him and vaugely recall that something was supposed to be there before he fell back once more into a heavy sleep.

Occassionally, he could hear voices.

"Just one body? Are you sure?" Mycroft sounded worried.

"Absolutely." A woman answered. Her voice was warm. Sherlock liked it. It sounded familiar.

Sometimes, he remembered his own.

_"I lived my life before you and I lived it with you and I lived it after you, and only one of those periods was of any value to me."_

He had meant what he said. He had tried to stop lying, if he had even lied at all. Only what he thought _he_ couldn't handle. Only the minor technicalities. But his doctor had always been clever when it counted.

Sherlock didn't know who he'd been begging to, whom he'd prostrated himself before to spare _his_ life, but whomever it was, they ignored him. He knew they would since he'd never been any shade of religious, a ghost in that crowd who only came to observe rituals that he found quite odd and pointless before he left, deemed that they had no beneficial merits, and never looked back.

He'd been secular, never religious in the slightest until _he_ limped his way into Sherlock's life in a Holy Trinity of bad jumpers, psychosomatic wounds and steadfast morality. If he ever truly believed in anything or anyone other than himself, it was _him_. Just him. Always him. Believed in his inherent goodness, in his bravery, his loyalty, the fact that he held a gun as easily as a butter knife smeared in jam or a shampoo bottle if it meant protecting someone. Sherlock had never felt protected until his army doctor, always on his own, always relying on himself since Mycroft had grown into adolescence and found greater and better endeavours than coddling his younger brother.

Sherlock had been stupid, so incredibly stupid for trusting him, for loving him, for thinking that he might never die or at least if he did, it would be with Sherlock beside him so they could go together. He'd be lying if he said that he hadn't really considered what would happen if _he_ died. His soldier's death was always a risk, but somehow they'd managed to avoid it through cunning, through cleverness, through sheer dumb luck.

"_If we died together, I'd want to feel you one last time, anywhere I could get my hands on, at least before you were cold. I wouldn't want your warmth to go away."_

Sherlock had never had the chance to touch him, to feel his chest rise and fall as they took their last breaths together, and that was the worst of it.

He never got to touch him but at least he hadn't been cold. He had been fire and heat and red-hot bone and melting flesh. His warmth had imploded inside him like a dying star.

A notion that his mind was trying to convince him was supposed to be comforting.

Was this what a crisis in faith felt like? He could only suppose that was it. His loss of the one sacrosanct thing in his whole life had been too large, had meant too much, and now what was he left with? An empty hotel room that he would certainly vacate within five hours (during his exile he had learned in Hong Kong never to stay longer than just to sleep and perhaps shower), loneliness, and a new person to dedicate himself to so he might destroy them as they had him.

He felt a bitter, empty grin.

In his death, those responsible had sealed their own, for now Sherlock had no morality to live by.

He was free to pursue with all of his great and terrible being.

* * *

><p>He was not able to leave the hotel. Mycroft had made sure of it. Did he know what Sherlock was planning? Probably not. He most likely thought that Sherlock would kill himself at the first chance he got. A few hours ago, he would have been right. Now though, now Sherlock had some other business to take care of first.<p>

Someone knocked on the door. Mycroft went to open it. He knew Sherlock wouldn't move.

"Sherlock?" He called out. "You have a visitor."

_Mycroft, if you honestly think I'd want to see anyone other than him then I—_

"_You._" Sherlock did not shout, did not raise his voice, but his whisper was like razor wire, slicing through the room, hoarse from its idleness.

Mary Morstan stood in front of him.

As he moved to attack, Mycroft moved in front of her.

"Mycroft—" Sherlock's voice cracked. "Get—get away."

"Sherlock, she has something to say to you. Things you should know. Will you listen?"

Sherlock's murderous gaze indicated that he would do anything but.

"No," Mycroft added quietly. "She is not responsible for John's death. That honour belongs to the late Sebastian Moran who, if you recall, John managed to take with him."

Sherlock stared at his brother, his hands shaking at his sides. Mycroft sensed his collapse before he did and helped him to the bed.

"He's been…weak." He heard Mycroft explain to Mary. "Quite weak." Then something else, "Drug…not fully left his system."

Mary murmured something that sounded like understanding. Noise rang in Sherlock's ears like a monitor flatlining.

Mycroft stepped out to answer a suspiciously timed phone call, leaving the two alone.

Mary did not sit beside him, but stood opposite. He was grateful. He didn't want to be near her.

"Why?" He asked quietly.

"Sherlock?" Her voice was too soft, too solemn, too unlike the cold sharpness he'd heard in the factory.

"Why?" He repeated.

Silence. He realised he hadn't been talking out loud.

"Moran had risen to high ranks in the agency." She explained quietly. "He had secrets, state secrets and personal. Moriarty taught him well." She added, the acidity of the name stinging her tongue.

Sherlock's head twitched at the name, as if to rid his thoughts of it.

"Sometimes cancerous tumours are incorrectly diagnosed as malignant." Mary replied to his unvoiced question. "We didn't know what he was—who he was—until it was too late."

"Last night—you knew so much—"

Had he spoken out loud or was it in his head? He couldn't tell.

"Your brother asked me to convince you of my treachery." Mary said, offering a solemn smile. "Do you really think he would hire someone that didn't know how to bluff?"

"And Anthea?" He was almost certain he had spoken now.

Mary smiled kindly. "Do you really think I go by just one name? One face?" She fiddled with the straps of her purse. "Mycroft warned me once that you had a habit of undervaluing the things that mattered most."

"Mycroft can go choke on a fistful of cake for all the good he'd done for me."

He hadn't spoken, but judging by how Mary read his face, he may as well have.

"Yes, Sherlock, he _has_ done good for you. Look at what's he's done. Look at how he's protected you."

"_Protected me_?" Sherlock shouted, turning to rear his wrath upon her. "By doing what, exactly? By letting my—" _my earth, my entirety_—"My colleague be employed by an international assassination agency? Did he think it was in my best interest not to let me know that he was murdering people because it helped him process my death? Did Mycroft think it was protecting, letting him be drugged into reliance on a seizure medication he didn't need? By letting him be tortured? By letting him—letting him—"

_Burn._

Sherlock couldn't finish although he knew quite well the difference between couldn't and wouldn't.

He couldn't.

Mary sat beside him where he'd collapsed against the bed.

The room was silent, none of his words hanging in the air simply because he hadn't said them. To Mary's eyes, he had stood and turned to look at her with an expression of such hatred and grief that she couldn't imagine how she'd once thought him to be inhuman. He stared at her until he was trembling, until she could see his eyes glisten and his hands clench into fists.

"I know what John meant to you, Sherlock, and all the times I talked to him, I could see how much you meant to him. Even though you were gone, he never stopped thinking about you. Never stopped telling me stories. Did you know that? Every time we met in the Drop-Off after a hit, he would talk about you. I think it made him feel better, made him feel…safer." Sherlock had his face buried in his hands. She reached into her purse. "He told me once that if you came back and he wasn't there, he wanted you to have this. He always believed in you, you know, even before he was sure you were alive, and—and I think he'd want you to do the same for him. To remember him." She sighed and Sherlock vaguely recalled that she'd cared for his army doctor too. But he had not been her world as he'd been Sherlock's. He had not been her reason to rise in the morning or to jump to her death or to track an international web of criminals. No, he had not been hers as he'd been Sherlock's.

He heard Mary run a hand over something.

"I know this is—it can't make up for what you've lost, but I hope it reminds you that he loved you, Sherlock, more than anything." Quietly, she laid a box in his lap. "You are loved, Sherlock…you are so loved." She said softly, brushing a hand at his temple before standing and leaving the room.

Sherlock waited until he heard the door shut to lift his head. It was a wonder he could even do that. But the promise that something of _his_ remained, something that was all Sherlock's and no one else's, it was too enticing to ignore.

It was a simple thing, the box. Pinewood, engraved with his initials. J.H.W. A box for souvenirs, for things of personal importance. Something he'd wanted Sherlock to have.

He opened it, his fingers shaking as they dipped into the box.

His gun, standard army issue, Browning L9A1. He knew from the event at the pool that John liked to keep his firearms according to what felt most comfortable. Small, powerful, did its job any way you asked it to. So fitting.

He placed the gun beside him on the bed. The box was so much lighter now. He didn't want to reach in again, didn't want this discovery to end, he wanted it to be infinite, to know that there would always be more of his soldier to uncover, yet soon he found that his hand scraped the bottom and for a moment he panicked. Surely that couldn't be all he had to remember him by. There was so much more that defined him than a _gun_, something that reeked of the humanistic desire to assert itself.

Something clinked against the corner of the box.

He pulled them out, twin metal circles dangling from the chain wrapped around his hand. His dogtags.

_O POS_

_P 74214183_

_WATSON_

_JOHN H._

_OTHER_

Other. That was unexpected, although in a way it really wasn't. He had never discussed his religion with Sherlock and so he'd assumed it was Church of England or some other typical venture. Of course he'd still surprise Sherlock; of course he'd still be a mystery. Too uncertain to check the Atheist or Agnostic box on something that would feel so permanent and too undecided to check something more defining. Fascinating.

He slipped them on. Took a deep breath. Reached into the box for the last time.

A note.

_Some part of me knew it would end like this, but the rest of me didn't want to believe it. Hopefully you'll never read this, but if you are then I'm sorry, for a lot of things, but mainly that we weren't what we should have been when you were here, and now we never will be. I always knew you'd come back though. My therapist would call it wishful thinking but I think I'd call it faith. Faith that you'd return to me one day. But if you have and I'm not there, this gun is for the times when you absolutely need it—emergencies, alright?—not just when you're bored. Mrs Hudson would not forgive you for the new holes in the wall._

_I'm still here. It's not forever. It doesn't mean I've left you._

_I've always wanted to end a letter like this, and I guess now is the best time for you to know:_

_I love you,_

_John_

_PS – Forgive me for the state of 221B, and whatever surprises you may find. People do strange things when they're lonely and in love._

Sherlock barely had time to process the note, much less the postscript, when he felt the chain of the dogtags being twisted behind him. He lashed out, struggling to reach whomever it was that was choking him, but they kept their grip tightly on the chain. He could feel their breath on his neck.

The sunlight was warm on his face, shining through the window in front of him. It felt nice. The metal cut into his neck. The fates had been merciful, allowing him only one day away from him before taking pity on him and letting Sherlock join him. He'd be glad to. He stopped struggling, letting his hands fall away. He'd make this an easy job for whoever it was. His heart pounded as he shut his eyes.

_John. It wasn't forever, but it felt like it. John. Wait for me._

There was a crack, a sudden high pitched whistle as something sliced through the air. The chain loosened. He felt something hot dripping down the back of his neck as he dropped to the floor. His body sucked in great gasps of air although he didn't want it to. A door banged open. Someone called his name.

He opened his eyes. The light hurt. His throat hurt. His heart ached. Someone stood above him, silhouetted against the sunlight pouring into the room.

"John?" He smiled. "John, I—"

"Breathe, Sherlock, just breathe."

His heart dropped.

Mycroft. Not him. Not his soldier. Mycroft.

He scrambled up to his feet, the ground cresting in waves beneath him as his vision cleared and he looked down.

His attacker, dead behind him. A bullet in his throat. Clean entry. Blackened halos from the gunpowder already forming on burnt, bloody skin.

He turned his gaze.

Crack in the glass, signifying the bullet that tore through it. And the angle of the wound in his throat—

He was suddenly reminded of his analysis of the gunshot that killed the cabbie, the event that affirmed his soldier's presence in Sherlock's life.

"_A kill shot over that distance, from that kind of a weapon…"_

No. Impossible.

Sherlock rushed to the window, leaning as far out of it as he could without risking Mycroft's already spiking concern. He counted the windows up and across until he arrived at the correct angle.

_Give me something. Give me anything. A flash of a rifle being packed away. The shine of blonde hair. The_ _rim of a cap. An old biker jacket. Anything._

He stared at the window where nothing moved behind it. Stared at it until he felt Mycroft gently pull him back.

"Sherlock, I've already sent someone to look." He said in a tone that suggested for him not to be hopeful.

Sherlock felt his heart race.

He sat on the bed, ignoring a corpse for the first time in his life. Wasn't much of a mystery though, as he'd been there when he'd died. Boring case. He must have been sent by the agency, revenge for both agents on the only man left who could be accounted for it. Despite what Mycroft had earlier claimed, that he was in charge of the agency, Sherlock rather doubted it, or at least that his control was omnipotent. He hadn't known about this, hadn't been prepared, or else he never would have left Sherlock alone, never let him within sight of a window. Someone else had ordered this, someone that had gone undetected under Mycroft's nose. But who, then, had killed his attacker? Someone that had suspected the hit. Someone that knew of Moran's vitriol, his great revenge. Someone that did not want Sherlock Holmes dead.

Mycroft warned him not to hope, but since when had he ever stopped Sherlock from doing something when he truly wanted to?

He smiled.

The game was afoot.

* * *

><p><strong>It's over!<strong>

**Wow. The feeling is...it's quite surreal. I started working on this all the way back in February and now it's done...LUCKILY I have the sequel and "Come Back" to keep me busy!  
><strong>

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed and showed this some love, I really owe this story to you because if it hadn't had an audience, it wouldn't have been continued. Thank you for loving this like you did!**

**Special thanks to Fuse Action for being fucking beautiful in every sense of the word (and reviewing almost every chapter, Jesus Christ, balls of steel, this woman).**


	38. the beginning

The sequel has been posted! Enjoy!


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